Dogies licked up by Tongue River

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Dogies faced off against the Tongue River Eagles last Friday night under the beautiful backdrop of the Big Horn mountains, and both teams entered the contest hungry for their first win of the season.
The game started out pretty even as both squads took turns driving down the field, but coming up empty. Near the end of the first quarter, the Eagles’ defense set up their offense for the first points of the contest.
“Special teams have been giving us fits this season, and that continued on Friday,” head coach Matt Conzelman sighed. “They blocked our punt which gave them great field position which they used to punch one in on us.”
The Eagles lived up to their name and took to the air for their first TD, connecting on a 41-yard pass to take the 7-0 lead to end the first quarter of play. 
The Dogies rallied in the second making a defensive stand early, forcing the Eagles to punt. Newcastle then had a nice return, but a holding call backed them up to the five-yard line with a long field ahead of them. 
Unfortunately, the Dogies found themselves in all-to-familiar territory when on the first snap of the drive, the Eagle defense found QB Quint Perino and brought him down in the endzone for a safety, extending their lead to 9-0.
“We have been nailed with a safety in three of the four contests this year, and this is not something that happens all that often,” Conzelman admitted. “We’re going to have to reevaluate the punt, because that has been giving us fits. We need to shore that up from here out to try to cut down on the issues there.”
Right before half, the Dogies were on the Eagle’s 25 yard-line and it was looking like they were going to score, but then they got pushed back to the 30.
“If we had been at the 25, I would have felt pretty good at letting Ezra [Anderson] take a shot at a field goal,” Conzelman reasoned. “But at the 30, we were right at the edge of his comfort zone so we decided to go for it instead.”
Unfortunately, the team was unable to convert the fourth down so went into the locker room in a 0-9 deficit. 
In the second half, the hits kept coming as the Eagles aired out another 32 yard TD pass in the third quarter to extend their lead to 16-0, and added insult to injury by punching two more into the endzone in the fourth - one on the ground and yet another in the air.
It seemed that Murphy’s Law was ruling the gridiron for the Dogies throughout the contest, because whatever could go wrong with the game certainly seemed to do so. Conzelman noted that the film they had on the Eagles depicted a team that looked to be about the Dogies’ size, however on Friday the squad that took the field was manned by about eight big guys who had just come out of quarantine and the front four gave Conzelman’s guys trouble offensively all night. 
“Those guys are the best we’ve seen all year,” he sighed. “We weren’t expecting that so it was a bit of a problem for us.”
Conzelman was quick to point out that despite the final score, and the problems that seem to plague his squad, there were some definite positives for them to build on going forward.
“You know, in the first half, there were a lot of good things going on, and we also had some decent things happen in the second,” he insisted. “But there are just still some small things that we need to work on that, when they happen, are just so costly for us.”
The Dogies were able to successfully execute an onside kick by Ezra Anderson to regain possession of the ball after the safety, Aidan Chick and Hogan Tystad each had interceptions, Holden McConkey and Tristan Wornkey each recovered an Eagle fumble and Wornkey and Kale Corley each brought down the QB for a sack. 
“There are some good things happening so now we just need to learn to capitalize on those mistakes,” Conzelman nodded. “You would think those moments would shift the momentum to us, but then something goes a little wrong to throw everything off. We need to figure out what to do with that.”
Conzelman plans on working to address his squad’s issues this week as they prepare to travel to Glenrock to take on the Herders at 6 p.m. this Friday While their opponent is down from their powerhouse days, Conzelman knows his crew needs to shore things up to get a win.