Bow-wow! Scotties defeat ’Hounds

So, who’s the Big Dog now?

The Class 1A Freeman Scotties ran around and through the visiting Class 2A Pullman Greyhounds Friday night, posting a 40-14 nonleague football victory that was even more lopsided than the scoreboard indicated.

Working behind a big, quick offensive line, running backs Max Laib and Markus Goldbach ran around and through Pullman’s defense, scoring three and two touchdowns, respectively.

“Our offensive line is huge and we just have to use them,” an exuberant Laib said. “They did a great job giving us holes to run through.”

The Scotties (2-0) opened up a 21-0 lead in the second quarter.

Goldbach punched through the Greyhounds’ defensive line and burst into the end zone from 25 yards out for the first score with 5:57 left in the first quarter.

On the Scotties’ first possession of the second quarter, Preston Hoppman found Kian Genteman with a 15-yard touchdown pass to make it 14-0.

Genteman picked off a pass from Mason Petrino, son of University of Idaho head football coach Paul Petrino, on the next Pullman series and Freeman marched right back into the end zone in just five plays, with Laib squeezing in from the 2 to make it 21-0.

And then Freeman left the door open by turning the ball over on back-to-back possessions.

Following an interception of a Hoppman pass by the Greyhounds’ Kellen Mayes, Pullman was stopped on third down at its own 33. Petrino, who doubles as the Greyhounds’ punter, stepped back to kick on fourth down and instead launched a long pass to David Ungerer for a 67-yard scoring play.

After an attempted onside kick failed, Ungerer picked off a second Hoppman pass on the Scotties’ first play from scrimmage, and Pullman (1-1) marched 47 yards for a score to make it 21-14 after two quarters.

“You know, I think the thing I am most pleased with about this game is the way we just put that quarter behind us and went back to our game plan,” Freeman coach Jim Wood said. “There wasn’t a lot of talk about it at halftime. We just told them to go back out there and do it all again in the second half.

“And I think we did. This was a convincing win.”

Goldbach and Laib each had short runs for touchdowns in the third quarter and Laib added the capper on a 20-yard run in the fourth quarter.

“They weren’t picking us to win this one,” Laib said. “But this was a huge win for our program.”