The Plains Horsemen took a 54-24 defeat on their home field Friday night as they went up against the Arlee Warriors.

The first half of the game saw Arlee moving through the pack at a good pace, although the Horsemen did their best to keep up on the scoreboard. The Warriors took the lead from early on and led 26-12 at halftime.

Warrior Lane Schall caught four touchdown passes, two from Lane Johnson and two from Chase Gardner, to lead Arlee to the victory over Plains. Darshan Bolen also ran for two scores for the Warriors.

Horsemen standout for the game saw quarterback Treydon Brouillete run toward the end zone, but was stopped at the 1-yard-line by the Warriors defence. Brouillette then passed to Esvin Reyes for the touchdown. For the game, Brouillette was 11 for 19 passing for 122 yards and one touchdown. Matt McCracken caught seven passes for 68 yards and scored a touchdown.

Unfortunelty for the Horsemen, the Warriors came to the field with successful passes and a strong running game, and the visiting team took every opportunity to get in front of the Horsemen.

“Deep pass coverage was our biggest weakness against Arlee,” said Plains head coach Eddie Fultz.

A couple of conversions and interceptions only aided the Warriors in the win. They strongly dominated the scoreboard in the second half, outscoring the Horsemen 28-12.

The Horsemen team did rally a number of times with players such as Jacob Peterson, Malachi Pualsen, Rusty Stewart and Reyes doing their best to block and to stop Arlee from running the ball. They just couldn’t get a strong enough drive to level out on the scoreboard.

Rusty Stewart had nine tackles and a sack and blocked a punt to lead the Plains defense. Paulsen had six tackles and half a sack.

“We need to keep improving, keep competing and the back half of this season will be better than the first,” Fultz said optimistically. ”Our practice goals are slowly working, we have got to be more physical and aggressive and have to block and tackle better.”

When asked his thoughts on a comeback for this season, Fultz said, ”Yes, there is a chance to turn it around.”

Plains isn’t sitting well in the conference after the loss, and it will be a challenge for the young team to push forward in hopes of making the state playoffs this season. The Horsemen are on the road to face Flint Creek at 7 p.m. Friday.