POCATELLO — Gathered in a huddle after the game, the mood around the Skyline Grizzlies was unsatisfied.

After their 43-32 victory over the Pocatello Thunder, Skyline head coach Scott Berger laid into his team — even starting the season 3-0 and scoring 43 points, this wasn't the Skyline standard of football.

"Scoring 43 points, that's great, but there's a lot of things we can improve," Berger said. "There's a lot of things we can change. That's my hope, that's my charge for the team."

Senior running back Caden Cruz, who finished with three total touchdowns, and the rest of the Grizzlies are motivated to live up to that high standard every time the lights come on and they put on their uniforms.

"It says a lot," Cruz said. "Our coaches are very well prepared for this, and they understand the ball game a lot, and they motivate us, condition us, make us do all this type of stuff, and make us just work hard and be able to transfer all this into the game."

Coming into the game, the Grizzlies knew the Thunder were no pushovers.

"We knew it'd be a dogfight. We knew it'd be hard. Anytime you go down here and play on the road, man, you gotta play — you gotta play for 48 minutes," Berger said.

The dogfight started early after senior quarterback John Giannini III found Cruz behind the defense and raced to the end zone for a 36-yard opening score.

The Thunder punched right back. Junior quarterback Rhev Stuki, efficient throwing the ball, connected with junior wide receiver Kellen Walker for the first of his three touchdown passes. Stuki also used his legs, driving tacklers 45 yards down to the 1-yard line, where senior running back Jarmon Curtner punched it in to keep the Thunder in the game.

On the Grizzlies' next possession, they were driving when Giannini connected with Cruz on the sideline — but Cruz went down in a lot of pain, injured. Cruz went to the sideline, got his foot looked at, and returned to the game on a mission to not let his teammates down.

"I had to suck it up," Cruz said. "It was all in the head with the pain, and my foot went numb. My coaches came over and said, 'All right, you're a dog. You can get back up and do the thing.' So that motivated me to get back up and play, play my butt off."

Cruz came back into the game and was all over the field for the Grizzlies — catching passes, running the ball, whatever they needed. It paid off on fourth-and-1 with under 30 seconds left in the half: Cruz got the ball and walked into the end zone, and a successful two-point conversion gave the Grizzlies a 23-13 lead at the break.

With the Grizzlies getting the ball back and a chance to go up three scores, the Thunder defense needed to step up — and it did. Senior linebacker Ephraim Wadsworth never gave up on the play, ripping the ball loose after it bounced outside and racing 40 yards the other way to pull the Thunder within one score.

"In a game like that, man, you're just holding on," Berger said. "You got the lead, and so you have to make sure that you keep playing hard and keep making plays."

The Grizzlies made the plays. Giannini III, who had a quiet night on the ground, drove his team down to the 26-yard line, then took the snap, went up the middle, made a move to the outside and found his way into the end zone, putting the Grizzlies back up 30-19 — a lead they never surrendered. Skyline tacked on two more rushing touchdowns down the stretch to round out the scoring.

The Thunder added touchdowns from Wadsworth and junior wide receiver Graham Farnsworth and never quit until the clock hit zeros.

For as good as Skyline was, they were also sloppy in areas. With two turnovers and multiple penalties, the Grizzlies fell short of the sharp, disciplined football Berger demands for all 48 minutes.

"We tell them all the time, it's a 48-minute game," Berger said. "You gotta make sure that you're playing the entire game and you can't have any letups. We've got to clean up things like that when you're playing good teams in real tight situations. You can't have mistakes like that."

They may be 3-0, but the Grizzlies are far from satisfied.

"What's really nice is we've won three games on the road," Berger said. "We still gotta play another game on the road next week. Then we finish up with Idaho Falls, the big rival game at Blackfoot, Hillcrest at home, Shelley at home. It's no days off."