Prairie football hits another snag

Prairie football’s schedule hasn’t been kind to it so far this season, but the Mustangs have found ways to push through.

After falling to Briggsdale by a 20-12 score on Friday night, the Mustangs dropped to a 1-2 record at this early stage. They lost pretty handily to Cheraw, ranked No. 7 at the time, before bouncing back to smack Peetz with a 66-20 finish.

During that contest against the Bulldogs, the team relied almost exclusively on the run as senior Clayton Hove dominated with 289 rushing yards and three touchdowns. Sophomore Justin Schreiner followed his lead with 93 yards — the longest run of which was 51 yards — and three touchdowns of his own. Senior Brock Dollerschell (30 yards, two touchdowns), freshman Brennan Bringelson (27 yards), and sophomore Carter Jaeger (two yards, one touchdown) rounded out their scoring effort.

Briggsdale, which entered this week sitting just outside of the CHSAANow.com’s top 10 for 6-man football, proved a bit tougher to take down, but the Mustangs still held their own against a historically strong program.

Junior quarterback Wyatt Butler took on a bigger role in that matchup, throwing 77 yards on six completions, the longest measuring at 33 yards. Once again, Hove took the reins of the run game with 142 yards and a touchdown as Jaeger added the other end zone score with 53 yards of his own. Butler connected with Bringelson for some major yardage as he caught two receptions for 48 yards.

Hove and Jaeger were pure forces on defense, as they collected 21 and 11 tackles, respectively, against the Falcons.

Now, the Mustangs will prepare for what they hope will be a nice bounce-back matchup against Bethune this Friday at home for a 2 p.m. start. The Bobcats will also be coming in with a 1-2 record after suffering losses to Arickaree and Deer Trail.