Even though the ‘Cats football team (2-2) had an impressive turnaround by coming back from a 21-0 deficit against Lord Botetourt (4-0) on September 15, the ‘Cats fell to LB 28-41. LB freshman running back Hunter Rice ran for five of the Cavaliers’ six TDs and rushed for 203 yards on 27 carries.

However, the ‘Cats scored in the latter part of the second quarter following passes and runs by quarterback senior Ben Rhodenizer, senior Triniti Stores ran for an 11-yard TD, and an extra point by senior Ellison Morel cut the lead to 21-7 with 3:13 left in the first half.

As the game went on, refs made calls against both teams on a premium, including unsportsmanlike conduct on LB. The penalty yardage led to LB missing a field goal, which led to the ‘Cats responding with a quick score. After runs by Rhodenizer and Stores, Rhodenizer found the end zone with a 12-yard run, cutting the lead to 34-14 with 1:10 left in the third quarter.

On the Cavaliers next drive, Stores stole the ball from an LB player, setting up the ‘Cats at the Cavaliers 35-yard line. From there, Stores and Rhodenizer made a series of runs to set up Rhodenizer for a 19-yard TD pass to senior Malik Dunn.

After that, there was not much scoring in the fourth quarter except for a 2-yard TD run by Rice to extend LB’s lead to 41:21 with 2:24 left. On the final drive for the ‘Cats, Stores ran a 2-yard TD run, which led to LB taking a knee on the next drive to end the game.

Dunn added his opinion on why the team lost and what went wrong throughout the game.

“Well, no game is lost because of the referees and I’m not going to blame the officiating, but they were pretty bad,” said Dunn. “I think we lost on the offensive side in the first half, and we made a lot of unforced errors and failed to move the ball and convert on third downs.”

Going into this week, Dunn stated what the team needs to do to prepare for Fort Defiance and what he can improve on.

“To prepare for Fort I think we just need to keep working hard, have a great week of practice and we will be well prepared for Fort this upcoming week,” said Dunn. “Going into next weeks game, there is a few things I could work on to improve. The biggest thing would be looking the ball in before trying to take off and not free lancing, getting into my route and making the correct route break based on the defense.