TMS boys win against Lovell

The Thermopolis Middle School football team travelled to play at Lovell last Saturday, coming away with a 38-20 win.

Coach Shane Corpening said he saw improvement on the team from when they played Worland on Sept. 20. “I thought, without a doubt, we played our best game of the year, our most complete.”

Offensively, he said, the team played really crisp. Defensively, he added, there were times when they played solid and others where they missed a couple reads and tackles.

Lovell, he said, also had a running back that could move the ball really well if he could get to the edge. “There was nothing that was too alarming during the game. We stopped them on some pretty key series where if we didn’t make those stops they would’ve been able to get back in the game.”

This week will see the boys’ final game, at Greybull at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 6. The focus, Corpening said, has to stay on just improving. “We saw a lot of improvement last week . . . that doesn’t mean we can’t be better. There’s a lot of areas that we can improve on.” He noted the team’s physicality is better, but could still improve in regard to tackling and blocking, taking on blocks, shedding and containing.

Corpening again spoke of Rodey Farrell’s game, catching a couple touchdown passes and running a couple more in. Gavin Shumway, the coach said, also had his best game and had some good reach from the quarterback position with a couple touchdown passes and running one in.

Elijah Skelton did a good job blocking on the perimeter and had a few solid runs as well, Corpening said. Chase Moeller, he noted, also contributed to the offensive line having its best game, and Carson Williams made some key blocks and had some good runs, finding the end zone once.

Defensively, Corpening noted Will Coale had an interception, and Seth Weyer had a couple huge tackles. Defensive coordinator Dean Despain said the defense was pretty solid all around, but the endplays have improved each week.