South Stung by Bees

Host Twin Valley South was upset by the Bethel Bees with a late field goal. South seemed to have the upper hand in the first half with a 14-0 lead. But the Bees climbed back into the game and won the game 22-21 in the last few minutes of the game. It was a disappointing loss for a team that had won a close game themselves against Arcanum just two weeks ago.

What was more upsetting was that the team helped Bethel several times during the night with untimely penalties and mental mistakes. Coach Cates late related that he felt the Panthers could have scored at least two more times but missed blocks or penalties put the team into long down situations several times during the night.

And the last score was set up by Panther mistakes. Bethel had missed an extra point on their second score and so after their last score, they went for 2 but the Panther defense held them. It was a 21-19 game late in the 4^th quarter. So Bethel went for an onsides kick which South failed to cover. With a short field the Bees drove down to about the 14 line yard where they set up for a field goal. South was flagged for an offsides penalty. Now the kick was from the 9 yard line. So many time football is a game of inches. The field goal barely cleared the upright – if the kick had been from the original 14 yard line, it would have been a miss.

South did win the battle for turnovers. They accounted for a total of 3 over the Bees. But they were unable to capitalize on their opportunities. Defensively Chad Ehler had a monster night for the Panthers. He accounted for a school record 26 tackles.

Scoring for South – Jacob Bassler completed a 42 yard pass to JJ Utz for the first score. Then Bassler scored on a keeper from about 4 yards out. The last touchdown was another Bassler to Utz pass from about 21 yards out. Sammy Shockey was the leading rusher for South with just under 100 yards on the night.

“Bethel is a good team, but our mental mistakes just killed us,” lamented coach Cates after the game,”It was a heart breaking loss for us. But we have to regroup this weekend, get our confidence back and get set for next weeks game at Covington – they are going to be ready for us. Offensively we were able to move the ball well, we only had to punt a couple of times.”

Next up for South is a visit to league leading Covington, “They are a really tough team and well coached. We watched them on film beat both North and Miami East. On film it looked like both North and Miami East had bigger and better athletes. But they just willed themselves to victory – they played harder than anyone. Their entire defense flies to the ball every play. They have a great program up there – the players have bought in and the community have bought in, it is where we need to be as a program. It is going to be a tall task to play them. We beat them last year and so they are going to want revenge. We definitely need to bring our A game.”