The Victor Pirates traveled 626 miles, one way, and never left the state in their quest to advance in the Class C 8 Man playoffs on Saturday. That’s farther than Edmonton, Seattle, or Portland. The team, and their followers, left Victor early Friday and made it as far as Miles City before stopping for the night. On Saturday, they only had a short jaunt of 100 miles to Wibaux where they took on the undefeated Longhorns. Victor advanced to the quarterfinals after defeating Great Falls Central last week.
Wibaux scored two touchdowns in the opening minutes of the game and scored 24 of their 36 total points in the first quarter. Quarterback Noah Schneider had a 24-yard pass to Bridger Smith for the first six points and then Schneider hit Shaun Schaefferkoetter for the 2-point conversion. Schneider then had a 25-yard run for another TD and conversion. Victor responded with a 79-yard kickoff return and the Pirates were on the board. However the conversion failed. Schneider called his own number once more in the first quarter and made a six-yard touchdown run. The conversion was good as well and Wibaux was up, 24-6.
Victor got their nerves under control and began to tighten their defense in the second quarter. They held Schneider to only one touchdown, a 53-yard pass to Cade Dschaak. The Pirates were doing a good job on containing Schaefferkoetter who had over 800 yards rushing this season, according to maxpreps.com. Eli Rosen got through the defense for a 50-yard scoring run, and Jesse Pearson hit Logan McKinley for the conversion for Victor.
Neither team scored in the third quarter but Victor’s Colt Neville pushed through from three yards out for another touchdown. He also made the two-point conversion. Victor was only a touchdown away from tying the score until Schneider got loose for a 20 yard scoring run. Wibaux went on to win, 36-22. Victor finished their season with a 7-3 record.