SPEARFISH - History is repeating itself for the Spearfish High School football team. Turnovers and breakdowns, which plagued the Spartans last season, continued to rear their ugly head in a 13-12 loss to Pierre in a non-conference, season-opening football game on Friday evening at Lyle Hare Stadium.

With Pierre holding a 13-12 lead in the final quarter Spearfish threatened to claim the lead, marching to the Governors' 4-yard line. However, Jordan Johnson fumbled the ball into the end zone, with Ryan Hahn recovering the ball for a touchback.

Pierre then ate up the remainder of the time on the clock, earning the win.

"It was similar to last year," said Spearfish coach Chuck Syverson in reference to two missed conversion attempts and two turnovers in Friday's setback. "We need to figure it out why we keep repeating the same mistakes."

Gavin Cordell returned the opening kickoff to the Governors' 44-yard line. However, Pierre's defense stiffened and held Tony Garcia to zero yards on a fourth down and one rushing attempt.

On Spearfish's second possession of the contest, the Spartans struck paydirt. Johnson reached the end zone on a 17-yard touchdown. The conversion kick attempt went wide left.

"Spearfish took it right at us," said Pierre coach Mike Busch. "We weren't ready out of the gate."

With 7:10 left in the half, Pierre knotted the score at 6-6 when senior quarterback Kyle Cichos found Graham Schuetzle in the back of the end zone on a 22-yard scoring pass. The PAT kick by Cichos handed the Govs a 7-6 lead.

Pierre knocked on the door in the waning minutes of the half.

Spearfish foiled the scoring threat as Cordell picked off a Cichos aerial and raced 92 yards for a score. Johnson took the two-point conversion pass from Blake Besler, but the play was called back due to holding. The Spartans then missed on the next conversion pass.

The Capital City team took the lead for good on a 19-yard quarterback keeper by Cichos for six points.

Johnson rushed for 150 yards on 20 rushing attempts. The SHS senior did not start the game.

"Jordan was sick two days this week," said Syverson. "He only practiced two days. We wanted to hold him out."

Pierre rushed for 208 yards, led by Cichos with 91 and Schuetzle with 79.

"Our kids kept their poise," said Busch. "We felt we could run the ball on them. We ran it well up inside."

Coach Busch elected to go for it on a fourth down and one on its last possession of the game.

"We were fortunate enough to get a first down," said Busch. "I felt like we needed to go for it at that point. We didn't want to give the ball back to Spearfish."

"They made a great call," said Syverson. "They ran the ball to the outside. They didn't want to give the ball to us."

Coach Syverson said several positives came out of the game.

"Some of our new schemes we put in worked really well," he said. "Our line played well. Pierre had some big kids who were 40-50 pounds heavier than our guys."arfish, 0-1, visits Rapid City Stevens at 4 p.m. next Saturday in the first game of the Rushmore Bowl. Pierre, 1-0, entertains Mitchell in the Governors' home opener next Saturday.