Pirates defeat Kimberly; Weiser better than Buhl

By Scott Ford
Argus Observer
Saturday, October 31, 2009 10:34 PM PDT

Buhl — Weiser overcame the underdog title and handed Buhl a 28-7 defeat Friday night in first-round Idaho State football playoff action.

Undefeated Buhl, the No. 1 seed from District 6, never could get going against a stingy Weiser defense.

Weiser set the tone early, capping its opening drive with a 12-yard touchdown pass from Austin Winegar to Darin Thomas for a 7-0 lead.

Buhl answered, knotting the score at 7, but from there it was all Weiser.

The Wolverines scored again the second quarter on a 1-yard Spencer Chandler plunge to give Weiser the 14-7 lead at the break.

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In the third quarter, Weiser put the game away with 14 more points. The first score was on a Blake Sappe 3-yard run, then Thomas found pay dirt on a 26-yard scamper for the final tally.

Weiser finished the game with 318 yards of offense and held the Indians to 210 yards.

But the game was more dominating than that. Buhl has averaged 47 points per game this season and have only been giving up 6 points per contest. Friday night, Weiser stopped the Buhl scoring machine.

“I told the team the first offensive series we had in the second half was going to set the tone of the game, and it did, we scored and went up 21-7,” Weiser head coach John Srholec said. “Then we created a turnover on the ensuing kick off and punched that into the end zone and the game was pretty much over at that point.”

Weiser had a balanced rushing attack in the win with Thomas rushing for 64 yards, Chandler adding 29 and Sappe logging 74 yards.

 Winegar threw for 124 yards and deep threat Alton Funk had four catches for 89 yards.

Payette 36, Kimberly 3

In Kimberly, the Payette Pirates scored on its opening drive  on a 1-yard rumble by Travis Blackwell added another score ealry in the second quarter on a 70-yard catch and run from Garrett Grotheer to Damian Reynolds to take a 16-3 lead into the locker room and the Pirates never looked back as they cruised to a 36-3 first-round 3A state playoff win.

The Pirates scored 12 more points in the third quarter and added its final eight in the fourth for the final tally.

In all, Payette ended up with 495 yards of total offense, 370 on the ground and 125 through the air.

Leading the team in the rushing attack was Blackwell with 160 yards on 13 carries, and Reynolds pitched in with 102 yards on 14 attempts

Grotheer completed 4-of-10 passes for 125 yards.

The Pirates not only dominated the game they owned the clock with 30:46 minutes of offensive possession compared to Kimberly’s 17:54 minutes.

“We did the things we needed to do to get the “W”,” Payette head coach Troy Gleave said. “Our defense did a great job of shutting them down.”

With the win , the Pirates advanced to the quarterfinals were they travel to Timberlake, who defeated Bonners Ferry 34-6.

“Timberlake is a good team, maybe one of the better teams they have had,” Gleave said. “They rolled through their conference with ease.”

Crane 70, Adrian 12

In Crane, the Adrian Antelopes had another long night on the gridiron as the Mustangs dominated from the opening kick off and thumped Adrian 70-12.

Crane scored 38 first quarter points and led 58-12 at the break.

Adrian could only muster 139 yards of offense to Cranes 413 yards.

Adrians first score, in the second quarter, came on a 1 yd run by Blake Purnell and it second score, also in the second quarter, Purnell tossed a 25 yard strike to David Stones.

With the loss, the Antelopes fell to 2-7 overall and 2-5 in league play. Adrian will wrap up its season  at 7 p.m. Friday hosting Huntington (0-8, 0-7).