PORTAGEVILLE — Saxony Lutheran found itself down 30-0 in Friday night football action against Portageville, before mounting a 40-point comeback, ultimately losing 54-40.
Junior Quarterback Kai McDowell threw for 3 touchdowns to two receivers, Bryce Gaebler and Ozzie Turner. Alan Rudd ran for 99 yards and 2 touchdowns. McDowell added a rushing touchdown on a keeper, he ran for 75 total yards in the game.
Head coach OJ Turner was impressed with the team for how they turned what looked like a blowout into a close game late, that with a few more breaks could have turned into a win for the Crusaders.
“It’s 30-0, every reason for those kids to hang it up and just walk home, and they decided not to,” Turner said. “We ended up really tightening up a little bit of offense, we were not able to continue to turn it on, but at the same time too, as our offense started to score, our defense got some stops. That ultimately allowed us to kind of dig ourselves out of that hole with the amount of on-side kicks that we have and recovered. We ended up recovering four and probably should have been six which could have maybe potentially made it a different ball game there at the end. But definitely the kids showed a lot of heart and they showed a lot of class.”
Turner said that even in the loss, the determination his team showed to come back and make it close should be a confidence boost headed further into the season.
“We understand there’s not anybody on our schedule that we can’t play with,” Turner said. “I think those kids just knowing that and understanding that will be a big thing that we’ll do here for the next week or so. But we’ll continue doing the same thing we’re doing.”
The Crusaders will have an off-week, before hosting Windsor on the 18th.
