krobinett@journalnet.com

POCATELLO - An extremely sparse crowd was on hand to watch Highland finish off its regular season with a 35-23 win over Skyline on Friday at Holt Arena, and that's probably a good thing.

The less people who viewed this one, the more the final score will look like the Rams coasted to victory.

Those who were in attendance, though, know differently.

Highland had all kinds of trouble stopping Skyline's running attack and allowed the Grizzlies to amass an astounding 328 rushing yards. They ran so well that both Michael Glaser and Max Asay topped the 100-yard mark. Throughout the game, Skyline had no trouble moving the ball.

That caught the Rams off guard big time. They trailed 10-7 well into the second quarter and never fully put the Grizzlies away.

If not for a few opportunistic plays on defense and the help of Skyline making the kind of mistakes all 1-8 teams make, Highland would have been in real jeopardy of losing its first 5A District 4, 5, 6 game of the season.

But when it mattered, the Rams made the plays they needed to and walked away with nothing more than a Halloween scare. With the win, Highland improved to 7-2 and finished off district play unscathed. It will next host Lake City in a first round playoff game next week.

Coach Gino Mariani said he was grateful for that much.

"You're never disappointed in a win," he said. "Did we play great? No. But Skyline has been improving, and they played well. Give them a lot of credit."

That may be, but much more was expected out of the Rams heading into this matchup. Skyline was the only team not to get a win in its district this season and finished the season by losing eight straight games. Yet, against Highland, the Grizzlies looked strong.

For that reason, not a single Highland player celebrated when the game was over. Hardly any of them even said a word as they walked off the field. Had someone not seen the game and only been around the Rams during their postgame talk from Mariani, they would have sworn Highland lost the game.

"The atmosphere after this game isn't a good one," senior quarterback Taysom Hill said. "Every single one of us is disappointed in the way we played."

Senior linebacker Nick Winters said Highland didn't play up to its usual standard for several reasons. It was senior night, and a few players were over-emotional. Also, Skyline's résumé didn't exactly scream "you better be ready," to anyone.

"I don't want to say we overlooked them, because I'm not sure that's what happened, but we didn't come out ready to play at all," Winters said. "We didn't make the right reads, and we didn't execute the way we could. All I know is we can't do it again."

Hill said he thought the Rams definitely looked past Skyline.

"A lot of us figured Skyline would just give the game to us at some point," he said.

Hill doesn't believe the Rams will have that attitude again.

Highland has always played at its best when the stakes are high, and they don't get any higher than the 5A state playoffs.

Besides, the Rams still played well when they had to against the Grizzlies. In particular, Highland's passing game looked strong. Hill threw for 184 yards and three touchdowns despite a few ugly dropped balls. On his touchdown passes, he found Chad Pitcher, Bren Schiess and Jerry Castillo.

Late in the fourth quarter, after Skyline had pulled to within 28-16 and failed to recover an onside kick, Hill responded by taking a 52-yard run to the house to kill the Grizzlies' momentum.

In the end, though, Mariani never thought the Rams would need that kind of play to win. But at least they figured out how hard it can be to win late in the year now instead of next week.

"That's a good lesson to learn," Mariani said. "Preparation matters. We need to prepare a lot harder for this next game."