Wind River Outlasts Lusk in 1A 9 Man Quarterfinals

Lusk and Wind River proved to be two evenly matched teams that met in the opening round of the 1A 9 Man playoffs on Friday night in Niobrara County. Both of these teams could run the football and entering the contest Aiden Applegarth of Lusk had over 1600 yards rushing and averaged 240 yards a game. Wind River's Cooper Frederick was averaging 110 yards on the ground per game and Jaycee Herbert had 217 and 198-yard efforts this season.

Wind River also had the #1 defense in 1A 9 Man and that came in handy to stop a powerful Tiger running game. The Cougars were 6-2 heading into this game with 2 wins in their last 3 games. As it turns out, the Wind River offense made enough plays to win and the Wind River defense made enough plays to win. This was a hard-fought game in which the Cougars prevailed over the host Tigers 36-26. This is the first winning season for Wind River since 2009 and now have qualified for the playoffs in 4 of the last 5 years.

Lusk has an excellent season at 6-3 overall and 5-1 in conference play but Wind River moves to the 1A 9 Man semi-finals and will be on the road to face their neighbor, Shoshoni. During the regular season, Shoshoni beat the Cougars 19-0. We do have some great images to share from this first-round playoff game on Friday, thanks to Barbara Rapp. Take a look!