The Green River Wolves football team started off the season with a close loss to Lander.
Last Friday, Green River traveled to Lander to play its season opener and lost 10-7.
After two running plays, the Wolves fumbled the ball on third down and gave the Lander Tigers excellent field position to start their first offensive series.
Lander ran the ball on first down and was stopped for a 4-yard loss by seniors Payton Tucker and Tayler Jensen. On second down, Lander again ran the ball and this time senior Thomas Harvey and Junior J.D. Renfro were among the Wolves to make the stop for a 2-yard loss. Lander then went on to the pass and complete for 11 yards and a first down and then a screen pass for another gain to the 5-yard line. Lander then took the ball in for a 5-yard run for what turned out to be their only touchdown on the night and the P.A.T. kick was good and Lander had a 7-0 lead early.
It was a back and forth until, on a third down, Lander’s pass was intercepted by junior safety Jacob Fuss who returned the interception 29 yards.
Seth White ran for 2 yards on first down and then caught a pass for another short 2-yard gain. However on third down, Lander came up with an interception of their own and got the ball right back.
Green River’s defense held Landers quarterback to a 1-yard gain on first down before senior Thomas Harvey, Jensen and Renfro all teamed up to stop Lander for a 1-yard loss.
Lander then completed a pass for 9 yards, but was stopped after a short gain by Fuss and Lander had to once more punt.
Wolf Jensen started the drive with a 6-yard run, followed by a pass from Davis Wrage to White, which resulted in a 15-yard pass interference call against Lander. Wrage then hooked up with his tight end, junior, Kolby Ivie for 23 yards. Running back Gabe Burdette ran the ball before Wrage again hooked up with Ivie, this time for a 10-yard gain and a first down. Burdette then got off a good 9-yard run. Burdette then ran for 5 yards before taking the ball in from 6 yards out on the next play for a touchdown to tie the game 7-7.
Just two plays into the second quarter and junior, Orin Watts P.A.T. kick was good and the Wolves and Tigers were even.
The Tigers were in control of the ball and wound up moving down the field in the wrong direction due to penalties and had to punt. Junior, Jake Martinez, busted thru the line from his defensive tackle position and blocked the punt.
On first down a pass from Wrage to Seth White was incomplete followed by Burdette running hard gaining 11 yards on second down followed by a short 2 yard gain by Jensen. Wrage then dropped back and his pass was intercepted to stop the drive.
Lander once again had control of the ball, but didn’t make much progress due to the Wolves strong defense.
Lander got off a 51-yard punt that ended up on Green Rivers 1-yard line to pin the Wolves deep in their own territory. The Wolves were three and out on their offensive series with no gains so had to kick from their own end zone.
White got off a 32-yard punt and Lander started their drive in Green River territory.
Lander mounted a five-play drive which resulted in a 39-yard field goal and took the lead at 10-7.
Green River and Lander took turns at three plays and out on offense and the half ended with a missed field goal attempt of 32 yards by Lander and the scoring was over for the day at half.
In the second half, the defenses dominated with no further scoring in the game. Green River’s Gabe Burdette ran hard shredding the Lander defense with 11 carries for 107 yards and Green River’s young starting quarterback showed some potential completing four, second-half passes for 52-yards, but Lander’s defense also played well and came up with the big stops when they needed them along with some costly penalties, turnovers and sacks which caused Green Rivers drives to stall with no scoring.
The Wolves will travel to Rawlins for another non-conference game.
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