Bossier coach Michael Concilio wasn’t happy with every aspect of his Bearkats’ 42-28 season-opening win over the Madison Jaguars in Tallulah Friday night.
Bossier lost a couple of fumbles, including one at the Madison 1, and made some other mistakes that made it a challenge to put the game away.
But Concilio definitely liked the way his team came away with a victory on the road.
“We’re 1-0,” he said. “It’s good for us to come out of there with a win especially with us turning the ball over. We’ve got some things we’ve got to work on, but we’re excited about the fact that we made a big road trip like this in Week 1 and having to deal with those obstacles and coming over here and getting us a win like we did.
“We’ll take it and we’ll move on and look at the film and hash it out and try to see what things we have to do better.”
Bossier led 7-6 after the first quarter and then added two TDs in the second quarter for a 21-6 halftime lead.
The Bearkats increased the lead to 29-6 in the third quarter on a 47-yard touchdown run by Michael Green.
Madison answered with two straight TDs to cut the lead to 29-22 with 4 minutes left in the third quarter. Bossier responded with a TD to go up 35-22, but the Jaguars cut it to 35-28 with 10:28 left in the game.
The Bearkats put the game away with 4:15 left as Quinton Smith went 18 yards for the score. Smith scored two other TDs on runs of 5 and 4 yards.
Isaiah Blair-Wallace passed 21 yards to Kevin Daniels for Bossier’s first TD. Rico St. Fleur scored the second on a 12-yard run.
Bossier finished with 276 yards on the ground and 306 total.
Xavier Venious contributed to the win with 76 yards on just four carries.
Decamerion Richardson ran 10 times for 50 yards. Green finished with 54 on eight carries. Smith had 51 on eight and St. Fleur 43 on eight.
Concilio said Madison quarterback Kevin Jones kept the Jaguars in the game with his running.
“We had a hard time stopping their quarterback,” he said. “He was their best athlete. He had a ton of yards.”
Bossier plays its home opener Friday against North Caddo. The Rebels got off to a rough start, falling to Northwood 77-7.
— Russell Hedges, rhedges@bossierpress.com
