Statistics don’t lie, they say, and those from Friday’s Mission at Plains 8-player football game in Plains tell a somewhat different tale than the 34-6 final score in favor of the visiting Bulldogs.

Mission, last year’s Class B 8-player runner-up, ran into an improved Plains team in the first year of the return of Horsemen coach Mike Tatum. But in the end, Mission, which finished the 2022 campaign with a sparkling 11-1 record, losing only to Belt in the state championship game, had too much firepower and defense of its own for Plains.

Tatum was pleased with the overall performance of his defense, which he said played well but gave up several big plays along the way.

The Horsemen offense, meanwhile, got strong play from junior quarterback Darren Standeford, but as was the case with the defense, yielded some untimely and costly mistakes that included a pair of apparent touchdown passes that were called back by Plains penalties.

Coach Tatum took the loss in stride, vowing to work on the mistakes that cost the team a chance at winning their opener and snapping a two-year string of no victories.

“Defensively, three players stood out for us: Adam West had eight tackles, one sack and two interceptions that he returned of 60 yards total,” Tatum said. “Zeph Dines also had eight tackles with one sack and Anaya Loberg had seven tackles and two sacks. We were pretty strong overall but gave up some long passes at the wrong times that killed any momentum we may have had. We will be looking to address those issues in the defensive backfield”.

Those kinds of errors at critical times in the game also hurt the overall offensive performance for the Horsemen, who got a solid game from Standeford.

“He (Standeford) did a really good job while transitioning into a different offensive philosophy than last year,” said Tatum, who coached the Plains varsity for several years before returning to the helm this year when second-year coach Ryan Hart was let go after two win-less seasons. “He had a couple of long plays, passing and running, that would have ended up as touchdowns but were called back by penalties.”

Tatum said he thinks some of the Horsemen were trying too hard.

“If not for those penalties the game would have been much closer,” he said. “We will be looking to clean up those areas we can control and try not to replicate the same mistakes in the future”.

Standeford hooked up with senior wide receiver Adam West on a 37-yard pass for Plains’ only score. Standeford also had 46 yards rushing and 25 return yards for the game.

West, meanwhile, finished with a team-best 55 yards receiving.

Tatum was also pleased with the performance of the Horsemen offensive line, which he said played “a really solid game under the tutelage of new assistant coach Scott Johnson”.

The Horsemen will be looking to even their season record this Friday when they travel to Superior for a game against the Bobcats, who lost their opener to St. Regis/Mullan (ID) 58-52 Saturday night in Superior.