PhotoFest: Pine Bluffs Downs Saratoga to Reach 9-Man Championship

The weather wasn't exactly great for the Pine Bluff-Saratoga 1A 9-Man semi-final football game on Friday unless you like playing in the snow and the cold. Pine Bluffs took the weather on their home field in stride and posted a 42-12 win over Saratoga to advance to this week's State Championship game in this classification.

The Hornets jumped all over the Panthers right from the get-go as Ryan Mohren reeled off a 61-yard touchdown run and then added a 22-yard gallop to the end zone to give Pine Bluffs a 14-0 lead.

It was more of the same for the Hornets in the 2nd quarter as Carsten Freeburg threw a 31-yard touchdown pass to Shawn Shmidl to increase the lead to 21. That was followed by a Gabe Federer 2-yard plunge for a score and Jesus Solis added a 1-yard run for the TD so Pine Bluffs was in good shape leading 34-0 at the halftime intermission.

Jace Westring got Saratoga on the board with a 1-yard run to make it 34-6 but Solis answered that with a 59-yard scamper to the end zone giving the Hornets the lead at 42-6. Solis had 129 yards on the ground for the game and the Hornets as a team went over 300 yards rushing in the contest. Saratoga added one more touchdown as Westring found Griffin Bartlett for 10 yards and a TD. The Panthers conclude the season with a record of 6-4

Pine Bluffs is 9-1 and will play Lingle-Fort Laramie in the 1A-Man championship game at 1 pm on Saturday at War Memorial Stadium. The Hornets last won a state title in 2022. We have some stellar photos from that snowy PB-Saratoga game, courtesy of Ashley Jessen and you can view those in our gallery below. Enjoy!