Dogie men fall to the Patriots

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
“Offensively, it was like trying to strike a match. It would spark but it would just never light.”
Dogie head football coach Matt Conzelman described last Friday night’s contest against the fifth-ranked Upton/Sundance Patriots in the best way he could. Throughout the contest, his team would get some good things going, have big plays that would seem to swing the momentum their way, and then it was like letting go of a balloon before tying it off. 
“It would just be right there and then we just couldn’t do it,” he sighed. “We didn’t have any offensive rhythm, we had missed assignments, and it was just a lot of stuff that made the night pretty difficult.”
The Patriots moved up to 2A this year, and into the Dogies’ conference so Friday’s matchup kicked off what Conzelman refers to as the Weston County Civil War. In this first
battle, the Patriots handed Newcastle a 41-0 defeat.
“Obviously, the only way to go is up,” Conzelman determined. “I told the kids that I put this on us because we as coaches just didn’t have them prepared like they should have been.”
Newcastle had the ball to start the contest and were able to pick up a couple of first downs in the opening drive. The two teams battled back and forth, exchanging blows for much of the first quarter until a well placed punt by the Patriots had the Dogies taking possession on their own one yard line. 
On second down, Taten Engle, in his debut appearance as starting quarterback, was taken down by the Patriot defense inside the Dogies’ endzone giving Upton/Sundance a safety and a two-point lead on the scoreboard. 
“After that, you could feel it tipping a little bit,” Conzelman admitted. “I thought defense played well all game, but we just got into some bad situations with short field situations which makes it hard.” 
After the Patriots broke the seal, they pushed their advantage going into the half with a 29-0 lead over
the Dogies.
In the second half of play, the Dogies were able to slow the bleeding, holding the Patriots to only two more TDs but still couldn’t get any offense going to put any points on the board for themselves.
“If we can get the offense and special teams going a little bit we could be better, and we did have some really good moments,” Conzelman mused. “When you go into that game against one of the top teams in the conference, you want to bang with them a little bit. It really shows us where we are and the things we need to work on going forward which is good for us.”
Conzelman noted that with a full week of practice this week, the squad would be going over assignments to cut down on some of the confusion his players suffered on Friday
to prepare for another tough contest this weekend.
The Big Horn Rams are coming in with the same 0-2 record as the Dogies, but their losses were also to some tough teams. They were defeated by the No. 1 ranked Lovell Bulldogs and the No. 4 ranked Wheatland Bulldogs. 
“It isn’t like they are playing slack teams, so we will definitely have to be ready to go,” Conzelman acknowledged. “They are fast and have some size up front so when they are running downhill they’re as tough to stop as anybody. We have our work cut out for us because they’re going to be hungry but hopefully we will be hungry too, and we’ll get after them.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. this Friday evening at Schoonmaker Field.