ROCK SPRINGS — The Rock Springs Tigers will travel to Casper Friday night looking for their first victory of the season when they face the Kelly Walsh Trojans.
Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m., with TRN Media’s pregame coverage beginning at 5 p.m. Fans can listen to the game on 97.9 FM KZWB, with Keith Trujillo providing play-by-play and Jayson Klepper on color commentary. TRN Media will also provide a free live HD video stream on SweetwaterNOW’s Facebook page.
Rock Springs enters the matchup 0-4, while Kelly Walsh is 1-3. The Trojans’ lone win came dominantly, a 70-0 victory over Cheyenne South in their season opener, but their strongest performance of the season may have come last week against defending state champion Sheridan.
Kelly Walsh fell to Sheridan 24-21, but the Trojans matched the Broncs with 379 all-purpose yards and held Sheridan to just 188 yards of offense. Sheridan did much of its damage through special teams, but Kelly Walsh still pushed the defending champions to the final minutes and came within four points of handing them a loss.
Sheridan extended its winning streak to 59 games with the victory, continuing the nation’s second-longest active streak.
The performance against Sheridan could provide confidence for a Kelly Walsh team that has shown it can compete with one of the top teams in the state. The Trojans will now face a Rock Springs team that has also been in position to win several times this season but has yet to finish a game with a victory.
The two teams have similar offensive identities, with both relying primarily on the running game. Kelly Walsh is averaging 222 rushing yards per game, while Rock Springs is averaging 205, ranking third and fourth, respectively, in Class 4A. The biggest difference has come in turning those yards into points. Kelly Walsh has scored 11 rushing touchdowns compared with four for Rock Springs and is averaging 26 points per game. That average is boosted significantly by the 70-point performance against South, while the Tigers are averaging 13.5 points per game.
Kelly Walsh has also been one of the better teams in 4A at stopping the run. The Trojans are allowing 121 rushing yards per game, the second-best mark in the classification. Rock Springs’ defense has faced a more difficult statistical picture. The Tigers are allowing 182 rushing yards per game, which ranks seventh among the 10 teams in 4A, while their 150 passing yards allowed per game is the highest mark in the classification.
Those numbers come with some context, as Rock Springs has faced several of the state’s better passing offenses through the opening four games. Against Kelly Walsh, the Tigers will have an opportunity to improve those numbers against a team that has primarily relied on its rushing attack.
The matchup also gives Rock Springs a chance to build on the competitive stretches it has shown throughout the season. The Tigers have hung around in each of their games since opening the season against Sheridan, including last week’s 26-20 loss to Thunder Basin.
Rock Springs led Thunder Basin 14-13 at halftime and twice rallied from six-point deficits in the second half before the Bolts scored on a kickoff return in the fourth quarter. Boston James led the Tigers with 161 rushing yards and two touchdowns in the loss. The Tigers will now look to carry that production into Casper against a Kelly Walsh defense that has limited opposing rushing attacks and an offense coming off its closest game of the season against Sheridan.
The two programs also met in Rock Springs last season, when Kelly Walsh edged the Tigers 15-13 in the final game of the 2025 season. Rock Springs led 7-3 at halftime before the Trojans rallied in the second half, and the Tigers scored late to pull within two before Kelly Walsh secured the victory with a fourth-down conversion in the final minute.
