The Plain Dealing Lions couldn’t overcome a slow start against the Cedar Creek Cougars Friday night, falling 32-6 in a District 1-1A game in Plain Dealing.
The Lions dropped to 4-4 overall and 2-2 in district play. Plain Dealing hosts D’Arbonne Woods (0-8, 0-4) Friday night. D’Arbonne Woods, which had to forfeit all four of its wins through Week 7 for using an ineligible player, lost to Arcadia 36-16 Friday.
Cedar Creek improved to 5-3 and 3-1.
Cedar Creek scored on the first play of the game and took a 16-0 lead with 4:02 remaining in the first quarter. The Lions cut the lead to 10 on Shavolyea McKinney touchdown run with 1:26 left in the quarter, but the two-point conversion attempt failed.
There was a nine-point swing in favor of Cedar Creek in the second quarter. The Lions fumbled at their own 10. The ball rolled back in the end zone and bounced around before Plain Dealing recovered for a Cedar Creek safety.
The Cougars returned the kickoff to the Lions 30 and scored four plays later, increasing the lead to 25-6.
“You can’t give good teams like that those kinds of opportunities and we did a lot tonight,” Plain Dealing coach James Thurman said.
It remained that way until Cedar Creek scored the final TD of the game early in the fourth quarter.
“Our kids fought hard,” Thurman said. “We made some good plays here and there. There are some things we did well and some things we still need to work on. It’s been that kind of season. We’ve got to just keep pushing along and try to fix what you can.”
Thurman said the game brought into focus one glaring weakness of his team. The Cougars were big up front and physically stronger.
“Those kids spend a lot of time in the weight room,” he said. “Our weight program is non-existent. We’ve got to find a way to get all of our kids together at some point in the weight room if we’re going to build any kind of program here. Whether it be before school or after school or whatever, we’ve got to find a way to get our kids in the weight room because that’s where we losing football games, things like that.”
— Russell Hedges, rhedges@bossierpress.com
