SHERIDAN – The Bulldogs, coming off a two-game win streak traveled to Big Horn High School where they were defeated 49-14.
Already depleted in the backfield with Max Meyer being lost for the season with a leg injury, also lost another starting running back, Ryland Petroski last week to a knee injury. Starting quarterback Brock Peasley then went down early in the game to a knee injury and it was undetermined as to whether he would be back in the lineup anytime soon.
The Bulldogs relied on starting running back Aric Suko who rushed 24 times for 109 yards and then the Bulldogs added junior Cole Goertz to the mix who stepped up and gained 89 yards on seven carries. Sophomore starting defensive end, Jacob Hyche who is the starting quarterback on the JV team stepped in as the field general and ended up completing three passes of six attempts for 72 yards.
Bighorn jumped out to a quick 14-0 lead with an early pick-six followed by a five-yard touchdown run. In the second quarter a long touchdown pass had the home team up 21-0. Goertz then broke free for a 47 yard touchdown run to make it 21-7 at the half.
The second half belonged to the Rams and ran the score up to 49-7 before the Bulldogs added one more touchdown late in the game as sophomore Jasen Monano scored from eight yards out.
Big Horn had 359 yards of total offense to Wheatland’s 265 yards.
“As injury plagued as we are right now, and three veterans out it puts a toll on those who haven’t played much and it wears them down in a hurry,” head coach Cody Bohlander said. “I think they played well when you look at the stats of the game, it’s really not indicative of the score. We had a pick-six, we fumbled the ball and they had a scoop and score, and if you take all of their defensive scores off the board, it’s not quite what the score was. We did see some good things from some guys that we moved into spots that I think will actually benefit us as we move forward in the season. We’re still 2-2 in the conference and in third place, and our overall record doesn’t mean we are out of the playoffs.
“We had 3 big turnovers that all lead to scores for big horn in this game. Without those mistakes we are in the game. It’s tough to stay in a game with turnovers like we had but we played hard and I think offensively we matched every bit of what they did. We had some guys really show up and played well, like Jake Hyche, JP Anderson, Aric Suko, Cole Goertz, Drew Smialek. We just have to stay the course for our last 3 games and get ourselves into the playoffs and then anything can happen.
The Bulldogs will travel to play the Upton Sundance Patriots this Friday with a kickoff time scheduled for 6 p.m.
