Titans end Horsemen's ride

It was one heck of a ride while it lasted but the Plains Horsemen’s football season came to an end Saturday with a hard-fought 34-20 loss to the Tri-Cities Titans in Judith Gap.

In Plains’ first football playoff game since 2009, coach Eddie Fultz’s Horsemen fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter before eventually coming back to tie things up at 20-20 by halftime. The Titans scored two touchdowns in the second half to make off with the win. The Horsemen complete their fine season with a 6-4 record, with all four of those losses coming to playoff teams.

Plains coach Eddie Fultz thinks things could have easily gone Plains’ way against the Tri-Cities with a little luck and/or perhaps a penalty or two less.

“We made a lot of little mistakes, but I think we coulda, woulda, shoulda won,” he said. “I think we out-gained them in total yards but had three touchdowns called back on penalties, and that proved too much to overcome.”

Fultz said two of the penalties may have been legitimate but the third involved a blocking in the back infraction that he could not find on film from the game.

Regardless of the officiating, the Horsemen put the Titans, and the rest of the Montana 8-Man football world on notice this season. Plains is now a football town and you had best learn to deal with that.

“We got our feet wet in the playoffs this year,” he said. “Now the expectation will be to win a game once we get in the playoffs again. We want our kids to get used to it, to make it a normal thing being in the playoffs and doing well there.”

The Titans scored first in Saturday’s game when Jordan Nees motored 65 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter. A little later in the first quarter, Zack Thomas scored on a 2-yard run and then added the 2-point conversion to make the score 14-0 Tri-Cities.

The Horsemen got on the board early in the second quarter when Kyle Weeks connected with Jay VonHeeder for an 8-yard touchdown pass, and after the conversion attempt failed, now trailed only 14-6.

After the Titans scored again on a 2-yard run by Nees to make it 20-6, the Horsemen scored the next two TDs – on a 53-yard pass from Weeks to Jacob Peterson on a trick play, and on a 17-yard run by Weeks – to get back in the game.

Orion Pry-Hyde’s 2-point run after Weeks’ touchdown made the score 20-20 at halftime.

Sawyer Connerton collected a 19-yard scoring pass from Brandon Bergum and Nees hit paydirt on a 4-yard run for the Titans in the third quarter. Tucker Walter caught a 2-point conversion pass from Bergum for the final scoring in the game.

Tanner Ovitt led the Plains offense with 125 yards rushing and VonHeeder ended up grabbing four pass catches for 37 yards, besdies pulling down a team-high 11 tackles on defense.

In his first year as head football coach in Plains, Fultz has already made his mark on the Horsemen, and looks to build on that tradition in the coming seasons.

“We are losing some big-time seniors but will have most of our offensive and defensive lines returning,” he said. “We will need some guys to emerge at the skill positions but should field a pretty good team again next year.”