Even though the South Loup Bobcat football team added a loss to their record on Friday, Sept. 9, against Hitchcock County, they accomplished many things no other team has done yet this year against the Falcons, including the offense scoring more than 8 points, racking up more than 100 yards rushing and more than 70 yards passing, and the defense holding to less than 40 points. The final score was 24-36.

This was a hard and physical game for the Bobcats, but when asked earlier in the week about it, senior Lance Jones was optimistic, saying “It will be tough, but we are ready for it.”

The Falcons scored first in the first quarter nearly 2 minutes into the game, but the Bobcats responded two plays later when Cache Gracey recovered a Hitchcock County fumble to run the ball 75 yards into the end zone for a touchdown and to close the score gap to 6-8.

A second touchdown by Hitchcock County with 2:50 left in the quarter made the score 14-6. An interception by Trey Connell within the last minute of the first quarter gave the Bobcats an opportunity to score, but the clock was against them.

The second quarter saw touchdowns from both teams, with Conner Paulsen slipping into the end zone with 5:05 left in the game for the Bobcats to nearly tie the score 12-14, but the very next play, Hitchcock County ran for 38 yards and scored again. The defense held the Falcons through the rest of the quarter and even stopped them from scoring after Connell threw an interception with 20 seconds remaining in the half. The first half ended with a score of 12-20.

The Bobcats came back from halftime with renewed energy and the defense hit hard to keep Hitchcock County from only scoring once with 5:35 left in the third quarter.

The Bobcats did not score during the third quarter.

During the first 5 seconds of the final quarter, A.J. Starr ran for 17 yards to score a Bobcat touchdown. Three minutes later, Hitchcock County answered for a touchdown of their own, but South Loup wasn’t done, and with 27 seconds left in the game, Connell scored once again to bring the final score to 24-36.

Connell tallied up 72 passing yards and 43 rushing yards in this game; Starr had 57 rushing yards; and Gracey was the leading receiver with 36 yards. Connell, Starr, and Conner Paulsen each scored one touchdown.

Senior Lance Jones led the defense with 6 tackles, followed by Connell with 5 and Rio Remund with 4. The defense stopped Hitchcock County from converting on fourth down during the game, and held them to 2 of 5 on third down conversions.

The Bobcats JV team played Anselmo- Merna on Monday at Callaway and varsity travels to Dunning on Thursday for a 7 p.m. game against last year’s state runner-up, the Sandhills/Thedford Knights.