'Cats come close
Tim Cranley II looks for relief from a North Star defender as teammate Shadrick Rich comes in to offer a hand.
Despite having a North Star defender on his left Thomas Spencer was able to complete a throw to a recieving player down the field.
Thomas Spencer looks for a way past a North Star defender on Saturday The Tigers would lose the game.
Steven Mellen prepares to move into the North Star defender The Tigers defense proved vital in the first quarter of the game.
Last week, Coach Dan Lucier said that in order for the Superior Bobcats to win against Florence, they’d have to bring their best game to the field.
And while Lucier felt that his players certainly did bring their best game, the team ended up losing by one point 33-34.
The first quarter of the game was filled with excitement. Matt Campbell received a 36-yard pass from Tanner Coon to score the Bobcats first touchdown and a kick from Chris Erickkson put them on the board at seven. However, Florence did the same thing and moving into the second quarter the game was tied, 7-7.
The Bobcats would come out in the second quarter to take the lead. Campbell was Coon’s favorite receiver and threw a 10-yard pass to Campbell for another touchdown and Erickkson had a good kick, putting the Bobcats at 14 points. Again, Campbell caught a pass from Coon and scored for six more points. Campbell also grabbed a 13-yard pass from Coon and Erickkson put in another kick and the team ended the second quarter ahead, 27-19.
“It was [Florence’s] homecoming and probably 3,000 people were there. They were pretty quiet for most of the game,” Lucier said.
The game tightened in the third quarter. Florence grabbed eight points to put them within reach of the lead, but Superior remained out in front. With a 14-yard run, Erickkson took the ball to the end zone for a touchdown. As the game moved into the fourth, the Bobcats were ahead 33-26.
It was in the fourth quarter that the Bobcats lost the game. They ended up being outscored in the last three minutes.
“Out of 100 plays we completed 90 excellently,” Lucier said. “The 10 that we didn’t were the ones that caught us. We knew we’d have to play really, really hard and we were leading until the Superior passed for 450 yards offensively. Lucier said when the team has a good passing game, things open up for them.
“But we’ve got to get better in the run game and on defense,” he said. “And we will.”
Lucier said while it was hard to let the game go by one point, he noted that it was a just a game and that there’s still a lot of the season left.
“We can still come out of this season well,” Lucier said. “We’ll focus on getting better every week. Our team is like life, it’s constantly under construction until we figure out what we have to do and we’re going to have to change a few things.”
The team plays Cut Bank at 7 p.m. on Friday at home. It will be Superior’s homecoming game. Lucier said that Cut Bank, like Florence, is a high caliber team.
“We’ll have to be able to counter them with our quickness and skill,” Lucier said. “It’s fun. We know we have to stand and fight in every play. We talk a lot about being the ultimate competitor.”
Lucier said more than anything they work to compete harder in practice than any other team and the players understand that they have to focus on competing well in games.