Teammates no longer as Plains outduels Savages

Matt Unrau

A lot has changed in three months for the Plains and Hot Springs boys. Just a short time ago they were all teammates living and dying on each possession on the football field as they made history together and Plains Senior Brian Green was catching touchdown passes from Hot Springs Senior Reiley Winebrenner.

Now Green and Winebrenner are on opposite teams chasing each other for loose balls, elbowing each other on rebounds and doing whatever they can to stop the other from scoring.

“Hot Springs is a tough one to play when a couple months ago these kids were on the same team,” says Plains Head Coach John Revier. “They’re talking a lot out there. It’s probably more like a pickup game than a highschool basketball game.”

Despite the familiarity of the competition Hot Springs Head Coach Ricky DePoe says the competition is still very fierce.

“It’s a fun game to play, but our players want to win…it’s like playing against one of your good friends that you want to beat,” says DePoe. “Your very competitive against each other no matter what.”

It was the Horsemen who ended up celebrating after the game this time apart from the Savages in the 60-46 victory.

The aforementioned connection between Green and Winebrenner that proved to be so special on the football field was the highlight of the game that saw one of the county’s top offensive players in Winebrenner go head to head with one of the county’s best defensive players in Green.

It was Green that got the better of the matchup early in the game as he scored 8 of his 11 points in the first quarter and held Winebrenner to only five points in the first three quarters.

“That’s a good matchup. They’re both really athletic and they’re both really quick,” says Revier.

Plains built a quick lead in the game with the help of Green, but a three point buzzer beater by Zach Malinak gave Hot Springs the momentum enabling them to cut a 12 point deficit to five at one time in the second quarter. At halftime, the score was 31-20. The second half followed the script of the first half as Plains dominated the third quarter and then played even with them in the fourth quarter.

“Besides a couple quarters we were right with them,” says DePoe. “We walked out of there feeling pretty good about it, with them being the caliber team they are…There were more good moments than bad moments.”

Plains was led to the victory behind Senior Trent Thompson’s 19 points and 10 rebounds, and after the game, the senior had nothing but praise for the defensive effort Green put on Winebrenner.

“Reiley is one of those kids where he’s going to keep shooting if he’s making them, and Brian didn’t let him shoot.”

Malinak scored 12 points for Hot Springs and Michael Brooks scored 10 for the Savages. Dillon Fryxell chipped in 10 points for Plains rounding out the double figure scorers.

On Saturday, the Plains Horsemen hosted Darby where they handily defeated them by a score of 79-46 behind a huge second quarter from Andrew Baker where he scored 8 of his 10 points that spurred the Horsemen on to put the game away early. 10 players scored in double figures for the team, and they held Darby to only 26 percent shooting from two-point territory, while shooting 47 percent from two-point land.

Hot Springs was on the road in a similar nonconference game. They traveled to Seeley Swan and although they were up the majority of the game they ended up losing the fourth quarter and the game by a score of 41-54.

“They had three three-pointers right in a row in the first couple minutes of the fourth. It knocked the wind out of us. We came back in the fourth quarter where we were only down by 6 or 8 but then we had to start fouling them to get the ball back,” says DePoe. Winebrenner had 20 points for the Savages.

This next weekend Plains will be playing against Troy and Hot Springs will be hosting Charlo in a game where they are encouraging everyone attending to wear black for the big rivalry game.