PhotoFest! Big Piney Survives Pine Bluffs in 9-Man Playoffs

Long road trips are the norm in Wyoming high school athletics and Pine Bluffs made the journey to Big Piney for their 1A 9-Man football playoff game on Friday, Pine Bluffs won the state championship last season and went undefeated to boot but they had their hands full with a physical Big Piney squad. In the opening quarter, Big Piney found the end zone as Caden Clifford got in from 4 yards out giving the Punchers a 7-0 lead.

Pine Bluffs had an answer to that with a TD of their own as quarterback Justin Lerwick snuck in from the 1 to even the game at 7. Big Piney came through with a huge running back right after that as Clifford outraced the Hornet defense and rambled 77 yards for a touchdown putting the Punchers in front 14-7.

Big Piney bumped the lead to 14 as quarterback Champ Snively tossed a 56-yard touchdown pass to Karsyn Gurr so at this point it was 21-7. Pine Bluff stayed in the game with a Lerwick TD pass to Shawn Shmidl and the Hornets were back in business, trailing 21-14. The Punchers responded as Snively found Gurr again, this time for 25 yards and a score so it was 28-14 after 3 quarters of play. It was a scoreless 4th quarter as the defenses played their hearts out but Big Piney won it 28-14.

It's now the Punchers' turn for the long road trip as they will go to Lingle-Fort Laramie for the 9-Man semi-finals that will be Saturday afternoon at 1 PM. Pine Bluffs wraps up the season at 6-3 but this program has won three state championships since 2016.

We have some superlative photos of the BP-PB game in our gallery below. Those pics were provided by Ashley Jessen and Sadie Snively. Enjoy!