AMANDA WEHNES

The South Loup Bobcat football team, despite a 28-54 loss on Thursday, Aug. 25 to Elm Creek, is seeing improvements over last year and it’s only the first competition of the new season.

Last season, the most points scored in a game by the Bobcats was 32 points mid-season against Pleasanton. The offense was able to nearly match that in Thursday night’s competition.

The defense started out strong, stopping Elm Creek from scoring at all in the first quarter and most of the second quarter.

Striking first early in the second quarter, Bobcat quarterback Trey Connell threw a 26-yard pass to Cache Gracey for a touchdown, giving South Loup the 6-0 lead.

Unable to get past the Bobcat defense until late in the second quarter, Elm Creek finally scored at 3:00 to bring the score to 6-8. A fumble by Connell less than a minute later led to a second Elm Creek touchdown to extend their lead to 6-14. Another touchdown by Elm Creek would further extend their lead to 6-20 at the end of the first half.

The Buffaloes came out of the locker room after half time swinging and scored another touchdown and 2-point conversion early in the third quarter to bring the score to 6-26, and then the Buffaloes intercepted a Bobcat pass just 16 seconds later to help them score again and bring their lead to 6-32.

Just 17 seconds later, Connell ran for 51 yards to score a touchdown and shorten the score gap to 12-32.

Elm Creek found three more opportunities to score during the third quarter, including a recovered Bobcat fumble to run away with a 12-54 lead.

The Bobcats had two scoring drives in the fourth quarter, both touchdowns from Conner Paulsen and the 2-point conversions from Ethan Furne and Dawson Mason.

The Bobcats had 277 yards rushing, with 175 of those from Connell - last season his rushing average per game was just 75.8 yards. Sophomore Conner Paulsen was the leading scorer with two touchdowns.

The Bobcat defense was led by A.J. Starr, Lance Jones, and Gracey with seven tackles each.

The home opener for the Bobcats will be Friday in Arnold against the Maywood/ Hayes Center wolves. Kickoff is at

7 p.m.

ABOVE: Junior Trey Connell breaks through two Buffalo defenders for a gain of 10 yards. LEFT: Sophomore Dawson Mason rakes it in for a Bobcat touchdown late in the 4th quarter against Elm Creek.

BELOW: Sophomore Harper Johnson looks for his opportunity to break through behind #33 Junior Joey Sallach.