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Football: The Colony struggles in opener
By Justin Thomas, jthomas@startlocalnews.com
A vast differential in experience manifested itself early Friday as The Colony's football team struggled to get on track in its season opener against Saginaw resulting in a 28-7 loss.
The Cougars faced a Rough Rider squad that returned 10 starters on defense and seven on the offensive side and fell behind at halftime, 21-0.
"We have a bunch of new guys and they had a bunch of guys coming back," said Rudy Rangel, The Colony head coach. "So they kind of got after us early and our special teams were brutal, which really hurt us. They did a rugby punt early on that we didn't cover and they ended up converting for a first down on the run and then went down and scored. And the next couple of times they did it, they were able to pin us down around the 2-yard line. To be honest, we never really recovered."
"They were controlling the field position and had a short field for their first three scores," Rangel said. "We forced a couple of fumbles and made some plays, but we just couldn't recover them or get off of the field. And then we had an interception of our own that led to another touchdown."
The Cougars finally got on the board in the fourth when Trevor Briggs capped a 22-play scoring drive with a 1-yard touchdown dive.
The Colony quarterback Troy Chandler completed 5-of-9 passes for 40 yards with an interception. Bryan Hammond paced the team on the ground with 116 yards on 30 rushes, while Briggs finished with 36 yards on six attempts. Matt Nelson paced the receivers with three grabs for 22 yards.
"We started to get in a groove there late," Rangel said. "We just couldn't get there quick enough. We haven't started well in either of our scrimmages or on Friday and that's something that has to change going forward."
The Cougars also had one of their starting running backs (Mahlieke Boseman) suffer an injury on the opening kickoff after he returned the ball 55 yards.
"He should be back for the next game," Rangel said. "But it changed things. We're going to a two-back running game this year and it hurt us early not having him. And we also made a ton of mistakes on our own. We have to cut down on the penalties and stay away from second- and third-and-long situations. If we do that, I think we'll be fine."
Defensively, Rangel was pleased with some areas.
"I thought our front seven actually played pretty well," he said. "But we didn't tackle very well and that's something that I didn't see coming. We had been doing a good job of tackling but we didn't Friday and they had plays of 40 and 60 yards because of it."
The Colony continues at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Greenville.
"We have a lot of young guys but we saw them getting better as the game progressed," Rangel said. "We just have to be more consistent. Our M-O is solid line play but we didn't block well or tackle well on Friday."
Greenville is coming off a 33-13 loss against Princeton.
"They're pretty vanilla in what they do, but they have some good athletes," Rangel said. "They're a very strong team on the defensive line so we're going to have to get after it. It's going to be another good test for our line and we're looking forward to the challenge."
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