Preston wins defensive battle at Pocatello

POCATELLO — The Preston defense was stellar all night, but when the game was in the balance late, that defensive unit made perhaps its biggest play of the night.

Holding a slim 12-7 advantage over conference foe Pocatello, Preston faced a fourth down inside its own five-yard line with less than two minutes left. The Thunder (1-6, 0-1) tried to throw for it, but a sack ended their final scoring chance and earned Preston (3-5, 1-1) a 12-7 victory.

With Preston’s victory, the Century Diamondbacks (7-0, 1-0), who were on a bye week, have clinched a conference championship for the first time since 2020. Century had lost 17 games in a row entering the season.

The defense was on display from the opening drive, when Preston attempted an onside kick to start the game and was unsuccessful, giving the Thunder possession on the plus-side of the field. The short field did not yield any points, though, as the game went into the second quarter scoreless.

Turnovers were an issue all night, especially for Poky who turned the ball over twice on interceptions, once on a fumble and four times on downs.

The Thunder defense did its part to counter that though, when running back-linebacker Huston Himmerich scored on a 35-yard fumble return early in the third quarter to match a first-half Preston touchdown pass.

Himmerich’s scoop-and-score gave Poky a short-lived 7-6 lead, after the Thunder blocked Preston’s point-after attempt following the 14-yard touchdown catch from McCoy Keller late in the second quarter.

Preston immediately answered the defensive score with a scoring drive of their own, capped by a seven-yard touchdown run from Conner Iverson.

After failing on the two-point try, Preston held a 12-7 lead with eight minutes left in the third quarter. And there it stood, as the two defense swapped stops, the last coming with Preston stopping the Thunder one final time with just 35 seconds remaining.

Preston will finish its season next week at Snake River, while Pocatello travels across town to take on Century.