Miners win resoundingly

The Hanna, Elk Mountain, Medicine Bow (HEM) Miner High School football team won their first football game of the season on Saturday against the Ten Sleep Pioneers in a convincing manner.

In the 1st quarter, the Miners amassed 20 points as the Miner defense kept the Pioneers scoreless.

There was no stopping HEM.

Tom Wagner finished up his senior year with a great game and was the leading rusher at 127 yards. He was also the leading rusher all season with 117 carries which garnered 688 yards.

Junior Hayden Antencio had 117 yards. He was the second leading rusher for the season with 71 carries for a total of 481 yards. H. Antencio scored the most points for the Miners, getting 20. 

Both led the team in tackles.

Naythan Antencio passed well and also scored. It was a good day for him and the team as a whole.

"They worked for three months for this," Head HEM football coach Zack Scott said. "That is a lot of work for very little at first."

During the season, the Miners played some excellent teams, several being in the hunt for the state championship. Despite losing to these winning teams, Scott told the team not to lose heart.

"I kept saying if we kept working hard, eventually we would see some good results," Scott said. "I tried to keep it even to allow seniors to score which is what Tom (Wagner) did and Jesse (Deegan) not only scored his first touchdown this season, but he scored two in the game. Quinn (Felton) got one too which was his first. Rayce (Ward)scored too, so all my seniors walked away from this game scoring."

Scott had empathy for Ten Sleep. The team has size, but not a lot of players and they have struggled this season.

"These kids have been through the lows and the highs," Scott said. "We have been where they are. Last year we only had seven players. We know how that feels."

Zack wanted his players to enjoy winning, but he wanted the Pioneers to understand, he did not want to embarrass them. He made clear that he just wanted his players to all get a chance to play. 

"We told them we were going to run a blast to give our little guys a chance to play," Scott said. "So they knew what we were doing and our little guys worked hard for their time on the field."

Anthony Solaas was one of those smaller players that played hard and scored a touchdown helping the Miners get the final score of 67 points to the Pioneers' 13 as did freshman Royal Olsen.

Scott has a young team which has learned a lot from this season and was grateful to seniors for staying the course and being an example to the newer players.

"I am so proud of these seniors. I will miss them," Scott said. "We went through all that adversity last year with having such a small team and the team went through a lot of adversity this year too, but we never stopped working."

Scott couldn't have been more pleased that this team won their last game even though the season is over for the Miners.

"You have to just keep playing even though there are losses and know that the team is improving, which is most important," Scott said. "When you do that, this is what happens. You win."