Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
The second season is upon us. State Cross Country started the culminating events in faraway Cheyenne last Saturday with the Wyoming Indian Chiefs crowned state champions. The Lady Chiefs were third and the Lander Tigers fourth in a solid showing for Fremont County.
This Friday the annual Class 1-A/2-A West Regional Volleyball Tournament begins at the Bob Carey Memorial Fieldhouse in Lander.
The Wind River girls and Shoshoni girls are both fourth seeds out of their respective 2-A Southwest and 2-A Northwest Conferences. Shoshoni faces Southwest champion Kemmerer, but neither team has a stellar record. It’s a game Shoshoni can win.
Wind River has a single win on the season, but Northwest Champion Greybull also has a losing season.
The West 2-A teams don’t sport a winning record among any of the eight schools in competition, which isn’t surprising with the nature of volleyball these days where teams play endless tournaments against different classes and rarely grace their home courts.
The 11:30 game Friday in the Class 3-A West between Lander and Pinedale should be the best of the opening round in Powell. The Lady Tigers and Wranglers split during the regular season.
The Lady Wolverines have their work cut out for them against top-seeded Kelly Walsh in Utah. Well, not exactly Utah, that’s four miles away from Evanston but almost. The Lady Trojans swept Riverton in three during their regular season meeting. The noon game features the fourth-seeded Lady Wolverines against Kelly Walsh who has just one conference loss, a 3-2 decision at Cody.
Football will have a familiar face for the Riverton Wolverines and Wind River Cougars. Both open the playoffs just like they did the regular season.
Riverton edged Powell 7-0 in a Zero Week tilt back in August in Park County. This time, the second-seeded Wolverines out of the Class 3-A East host the third-seeded Panthers from the always tough Class 3-A West.
Riverton almost took the top seed, but Douglas came from behind to edge Torrington in Goshen County last Friday 28-21. The Bearcats now host Evanston as the top seed from the East.
Powell and Riverton is almost a cross-town rivalry compared to the miles involved in the other Class 3-A games.
Lander’s trip to Star Valley is a haul, but nothing compared to Evanston playing at Douglas on Friday. Torrington traveling to Cody isn’t much better, but that’s the nature of Wyoming playoff football. The MVP on most teams at this time of the season is the bus driver.
Congratulations to the Lander Tigers on a resurgent season. Their win last Friday over Buffalo was a study in determination and grit. No one expected a shootout between the Tigers and Bison, but that’s what happened in Lander’s 42-35 win.
The connection between Paxon Hollingshead and Finn McFadden in the dwindling moments of the fourth quarter to break the 35-35 tie and send the Tigers to the playoffs was a Hollywood worthy finish.
Wind River doesn’t have an easy opening round. The Cougars have struggled this season, leading games early only to see their lead evaporate and getting blown out in early season games, including a 63-14 loss to their first-round opponent the Lingle Ft. Laramie Doggers on the opening weekend of the season.
Lingle is heavily favored with a perfect 8-0 record. They’re the only unbeaten team in Class 1-A 9-man but I know Wind River head coach Rod Frederick well and know he’ll have a few surprises, maybe a wrinkle or two that will keep the game from being so lopsided this time.
The Cougars displayed grit defensively in holding onto a 6-0 win over Rocky Mountain last Friday to advance to the playoffs.
Shoshoni has an interesting opening round opponent in the fourth seeded Saratoga Panthers out of the 9-man East Conference.
Saratoga pounded Wind River early in the season and the Wranglers narrowly escaped their Fremont County rivals at Pavillion two weeks ago. That doesn’t mean much.
Shoshoni is a vastly improved team since the opening week of the season.
The Wranglers traveled to Sublette County last Saturday and stunned the heavily favored Big Piney Punchers 24-8 to win the West 9-man via a point system in the tiebreaker.
Shoshoni fell to Greybull 26-22, beat Piney by 16 and Big Piney took a 33-23 win over Greybull in Big Horn County.
The margin of victory is good only to 12 points, but with a three-way tie, Shoshoni is plus 12, Big Piney plus 10, and Greybull plus four. The nod goes to the Wranglers, with Big Piney hosting Southeast Goshen and Greybull traveling to the corner of Nebraska and Colorado to play the once-beaten Pine Bluffs Hornets.
If you can, drop by Harold Bailey Field in Shoshoni on Friday at 2 p.m. and watch the Wranglers tangle with the Panthers. You’ll get a chance to see the interesting version of football that 9-man offers. It can be explosive shootouts with long passes, reverses and toss sweeps or it can be like last Thursday at Pavillion, a 6-0 defensive battle. It is an entertaining brand of football.
When it comes to wide-open football, nothing beats the 6-man game. The Dubois Rams could just as easily be hosting an opening round game as traveling to Basin on Friday evening.
The Rams fell in a close game to Encampment, in a 60-56 shootout in Carbon County three weeks ago and that’s the difference between hosting and traveling.
Head coach Dan O’Brien has his boys playing well and a common opponent between the Riverside Rebels and Dubois came out with nearly the same result. Riverside edged Meeteetse to earn the second-place seed behind Burlington from the North, and Dubois, plagued by a half-dozen turnovers lost in the final minutes to Meeteetse earlier in the season.
Dubois is playing their first night game in three seasons when they take the new field at Basin on Friday at 6 p.m.
A final note is state swimming with the Lander girls battling for another Class 3-A state title and the Riverton Lady Wolverines looking to make a splash next weekend in the pool at Cheyenne East High School.
Good luck Rams, Chiefs, Cougars, Wranglers, Wolverines, and Tigers.