On a chilly night in Columbia Falls, the Polson Pirates took advantage of cold fingers and the slippery running of Joe Andrews (#29) and Tim Rausch (#45) to roll past the Cats 43-20, putting a damper on Homecoming.
Despite the loss, the game wasn’t without highlights, though the temperature wasn’t one of them.
Polson jumped out quickly to a 14-0 lead, which left them free to feed the ball consistently to Andrews and Rausch.
The Cats Mitchell Wassam (#13) showed once again that he is the heart of this team, making tackles and scrambling from a pesky Pirate defense to complete three touchdown passes (two to Johnson – #19, one to Dustin VonFeldt, #5).
Aside from the loss, the big downer of the night was a spectacular touchdown-saving tackle against Tim Rausch (#45) at the two yard line by Wayde Martinson (#6), which resulted in Martinson suffering a broken collarbone (see photo sequence at the end of this story).
 |
Chris King (#22) eyes Joe Andrews (#29) before putting the hit on him. |
 |
Matt Triplett (#4) intercepts a Pirate pass near the CFalls goal line, stopping a Polson drive. |
 |
Nate Thompson (#11) had a good night on the ground, gaining 74 yards. Brock Picard (#26) tries to stop him as he goes up the middle. |
 |
Tim Rausch (#45) proved tough to bring down at times, but not this time as Mitchell Wassam wraps him up with a shoestring tackle. |
 |
Kelly Houle (#54) stretches to reach a screen pass from DiGiallonardo to Rausch. The pass succeeded but gained little yardage. |
 |
Mitchell Wassam (#13) scrambles and throws to Kaleb Johnson. Wassam was under pressure much of the evening, but still managed to throw three TD passes and gain 15 yards on 8 carries. |
 |
Houle (#54) gets to DiGiallonardo (#4) for the sack. |
 |
This sequence of photos shows Wayde Martinson’s (#6) touchdown saving hit on Rausch, which unfortunately resulted in Martinson’s broken collarbone. |
