The Noxapater Tigers saw their season come to an end last week as they fell 36-8 to Sacred Heart.
The Tigers end the season with a 4-7 record under second-year head coach Caleb Kelly while Sacred Heart improved to 10-1 on the season.
Kelly said the Tigers started strong but mistakes and lack of red-zone offense plagued his young team.
“We started off hot,” Kelly said. “We came out the first series and scored quickly. We drove the field on them in 10 plays and took an early lead. We came back on defense and forced them to punt and then we moved the ball well. We just had struggles in the red zone. We had opportunities to get up on them and just never got up on them.”
Sacred Heart then scored to cut the score to 8-7.
“They made it 8-7 and then we throw an interception in the red zone,” Kelly said. They went ahead and made it 14-8 and then we fumbled a kickoff and they got got up 22-8. At that point, we never got out of the hole. It was some sloppy football on our part. This has been going on for two years now and I don’t know what that’s about. I think this spring, we have to harp on protecting the football. It really hurt us this year.”
Kelly said despite the final outcome of Friday night’s game, there were positives this season.
“There were plenty of positives this season,” Kelly said. “Our kids played super hard the whole night. We never quit and I was proud of that. They have me their best and that’s all I can ask for. We are still young and I think those sophomore that we depending on this year will be a lot better next year. We will have a good offensive line next year and I think we will be able to compete a lot better next year.”
Kelly said one of the things that sticks out to him is a practice late in the season when he asked the group how many of them had ever been to the playoffs and nobody raised their hand.
“I’m proud of our seniors for getting our program over the hump,” Kelly said. “We have not been to the playoffs the last three years. They really showed some good leadership this year. They were awesome and I want to thank them for that. The goal was to get to the postseason and we did that. They just didn’t know what it took to make the playoffs. Now we know what it takes to make the playoffs and have to go take that next step.”
The Tigers had 165 yards rushing and 92 rushing. Kaden Carter was 12-of-21 passing for 92 yards with two interceptions. A.J. Robertson had 74 yards rushing on 15 carries while Demarkus McCully had 66 yards on 12 carries. JyKavius Riddle had five catches for 58 yards while Chris Dale had 24 yards on six carries.
Vontavious Triplett led the Tigers with nine tackles while Dale had eight tackles. Cameron Pinkley, Ro Riddle and T.K. Wilson each had four tackles apiece while Carter had three tackles. Andrew Harrington, Davion Holmes, Zavion Harrington and J’Cameron Riley each had two tackles apiece.
