The College Heights Cougars found themselves in a 14-0 hole early on Friday night in their 8-man football game against the visiting Appleton City Bulldogs at Joplin High School.
College Heights outscored Appleton City 44-24 after that 14-point deficit to take a 44-38 lead with 7 minutes, 6 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
But the Cougars’ first and only lead lasted 15 seconds, as the Bulldogs responded with a 55-yard touchdown pass.
Appleton City scored 36 unanswered points to come away with a 74-44 win, helped by a series of defensive stops and scoring plays with the game on the line.
“I thought our kids played hard in the first half,” College Heights coach Travis Burk said. “We stayed in the game. It just comes down to blocking and tackling. Once we learn how to tackle right, those games I think we’ll be fine. We don’t have a really solid running game, so that makes it tough, and I’ve got my quarterback running around with his head cut off sometimes. They did a good job defending us, I know we still scored quite a few points, and we should have four more touchdowns on them. We missed some balls, a couple other times we couldn’t punch it in. In the end, it hurt.
“Our hardest thing is, we’re still teaching how to form tackle, how to do those little things with kids who haven’t done that since grade school. We’d like to run power ball, but like I told them, I’d love to run it, but we just don’t have the boys yet. We’ve got to get bigger, stronger, and faster.”
Just five plays into the game, College Heights fell behind 8-0 after Appleton City’s Judd Koshko intercepted a Logan Decker pass and returned it 60 yards for a touchdown.
Down two scores, College Heights first got on the board with 2:18 left in the first quarter on a 4-yard pass from Decker to Caleb Quade, a combination that gave Appleton City fits most of the night.
Decker’s 2-yard TD run and a 4-yard pass from Decker to Cannon Miller earned College Heights a 22-all score early in the second quarter.
Appleton City went back ahead 38-22 after the first two scoring runs from freshman running back Cash Anderson, who especially proved to be money in the second half.
College Heights trailed 38-30 at halftime thanks to a 20-yard TD pass from Decker to Quade late in the half.
Decker came up with a fumble recovery and an interception early in the second half, turnovers which College Heights cashed in for 14 points and that 44-38 advantage after Bo Sitton and Quade hauled in touchdown receptions.
Appleton City went back in the lead for good on a 55-yard scoring pass late in the third and then Anderson rattled off three scoring runs in the fourth quarter to put the game on ice.
According to College Heights’ stats, the Cougars had 398 yards of total offense, with 273 passing and 125 rushing.
Decker completed 34 of 60 pass attempts for 273 yards with five touchdowns and two interceptions.
Quade caught 18 passes for 137 yards with three touchdowns. Durling had nine receptions for 60 yards, while Miller caught five passes for 52 yards and Sitton had three receptions for 32 yards.
On the ground, Decker ran 25 times for 86 yards and one score. Miller had 25 rushing yards and Levi Durling had 14 yards.
The first-year College Heights football program dropped to 1-4 on the season and the Cougars return to action in Week 6 at home against the Norborne Pirates.
“There’s a lot of teaching going on,” Burk said. “Sometimes, it doesn’t look like we’ve been teaching very good, but we just keep working hard and getting better. I feel like we’re in the games. Every game so far, I feel like we’re right there. Third and fourth quarter (Friday), we’re right there. A few plays go our way, it changes everything and momentum switches.
“Our kids, I told them that I’m going to work them hard Monday. We’re going to go out and get a little bit tougher. When you lose a game like this, it’s going to hurt. If it doesn’t hurt, that means we’re not working hard.”
