Wisner-Pilger falls at Stanton

The Wisner-Pilger Football team lost 28-6 at Stanton Friday night.

The Mustangs scored just 6 points in the first quarter, and led 6-0 at halftime, but scored 8 points in the third quarter to go up 14-0 after three, and won the fourth quarter 14-6 to win going away.

The Gators gave up 387 yards of total offense, 294 coming on the ground.

Credit Wisner-Pilger as they hung in there for three quarters, but I think the Gators probably wore down some in the final stanza.

Wisner-Pilger (0-2) travels to West Point-Beemer (2-0) to take on the Cadets Friday night.

West Point-Beemer won 35-20 at home over North Bend Central last week, and is off to a very strong start.

This was a 7-6 game in Wisner last year, and the Gators had a chance to win it in the final seconds.

This is a Cuming County rivalry, and you can bet Wisner-Pilger will play well and come ready to play Friday night.

The Gators have faced two very good teams the first two weeks of the season, and I look for Wisner-Pilger to compete and keep things relatively close with the Cadets.

The Gators have to try and slow down Hunter Pilakowski, who ran wild for 305 yards on the Tigers.

Most of those runs were to the outside from what I understand so Wisner-Pilger has to try and slow down West Point-Beemer's outside run game.

The Gators also have to clog up the middle too. Wisner-Pilger has to be tough up front, and must stop the run as well as run the ball well.

The offense also has to be better for the Gators. Wisner-Pilger has to find a way to score more than 6 points, their total output for the season so far.

It's just simply tough to win any game when you can't score, but that's not to say things won't change for the Gators this week.

I don't know if the Cadets are as stout up front as Crofton and Stanton. West Point-Beemer had a lot of success running the ball against North Bend Central though, and Wisner-Pilger struggled to slow down Stanton's run game so based on that one would think the Cadets might run wild on the Gators.

Could very well happen, but given the nature of this rivalry, I look for this game to be at least somewhat competitive.

Perhaps Wisner-Pilger's offense will break through and score double digits, and maybe the defense will allow fewer than 20 points.

If both of those things happen and it's like a 19-13 win for West Point-Beemer then I think the Gators would have to be encouraged.

You always want to win the game of course, but if Wisner-Pilger can keep this game within a score or two I think they would have to feel like progress was made.

I don't think you can honestly say that improvement was made from week one to week two for the Gators based on the scores of their first two games, but I think the way Wisner-Pilger competed with Stanton the first three quarters of that game proves there is potential with this team.