The Sebastopol Bobcats opened division play last week against the Noxapater Tigers.
The Bobcats turned in a good defensive performance but couldn’t find much offense as Noxapater took a hard-fought 6-0 win.
Sebastopol falls to 2-4 on the season and will travel to McAdams this week in another district contest with the 4-1 Bulldogs.
Brown said he was proud of the way his team played, especially on the defensive side of the ball.
“It was just one of those old-school defensive battles,” Brown said. “Neither offense could do very much. I couldn’t be more proud of the way the defense played. We had several good stands when they had short fields. They finally busted a long run on us and punched one in. You expect to win a game when you only give up six points. We just have to be more consistent on offense and have to execute better on offense.”
The Bobcats had the ball five times in the first half. They punted twice and threw two interceptions, the last in the end zone that ended an 11-play drive.
“We had a couple of missed opportunities in the first half,” Brown said. “We had first and goal from the five and didn’t score. We put together a good drive late in the game and had a fourth and one and couldn’t get the first down. We are still very young and that youth got exposed. But this is game No. 7 coming up. I don’t think of those young kids as freshmen and sophomore anymore. We have to continue to develop and grow. We can’t let one division loss turn into two by hanging our head.”
Noxapater got the ball to start the second half and got a big 69-yard return to the Sebastopol 10. But the Bobcats forced the Tigers to turn the ball over on downs with the drive ending at the Sebastopol 3. After a three and out, the Tigers got the ball at the Sebastopol 34. Four plays later, JuyKavius Riddle punched it in on a 2-yard run. The try for two failed and the Tigers held a 6-0 lead.
In the second half, Sebastopol had four possessions and punted three of those. The last possession was a 12-play drive where the Bobcats drove to the Noxapater 23 before turning the ball over on downs as the Tigers held on for the win.
Sebastopol had 134 yards of total offense with 75 rushing and 59 passing. Dannon Jenkins had 48 yards on 17 carries while Jahoward Johnson had 25 yards on nine carries. Wes Hogue was 4-of-6 passing for 59 yards with one interception. Michael Stewart had two catches for 34 yards while Colby Dooley had two catches for 25 yards.
On defense, Trenton Bray had 10 tackles and two tackles for loss while Jenkins had six tackles. Stewart had five tackles and forced a fumble while Isaiah Gilbert had five tackles and had a fumble recovery. Keyshawn Willliams had five tackles while Dooley and Hogue each had three tackles.
