The long Labor Day weekend really did a number on the Perryville Pirates. According to coach Brent Roth, a lack of focus and mental preparedness directly contributed to the Pirates’ 31-14 home-opening loss to the DeSoto Dragons on Friday at the newly resurfaced Pirates Stadium in Perryville.
“We lost this game on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday,” Roth said. “We had a bad week of practice. That’s on me. We’ve got to fix that as a coaching staff.”
The Pirates saw trouble right from the start. On the first play from scrimmage, DeSoto’s Brenton Drummond carried the ball 49 yards to give the Dragons (1-1) a 7-0 lead. The Pirates responded with a 75-yard scoring drive that saw Barrett Wheeler cross from two yards out to tie the score at 7-7, but the dragons answered with a 53-yard run from Damian Pogue. One failed two-point conversion later, and the Dragons led 13-7.
Things went downhill from there.
“We answered with a good offensive drive, went down and scored,” Roth said, “and then there’s just untimely penalties. Offensively, I think, we ran the ball okay, but we just sort of got in a situation where we had to kind of push the pass, but they were blitzing the house. It’s just mistakes.
“I don’t want to take anything away from DeSoto because they played a hell of a game and they’re a good football team. But we didn’t help ourselves. We beat ourselves multiple times.”
Trailing 19-7, Perryville found the end zone one more time as Kayd Luckey found Drew Leuckel for a 52-yard touchdown pass to make it 19-14. DeSoto would go on to score twice more to set the final margin.
Roth said this wasn’t the way he’d have liked to christen the new field at Pirates Stadium, but with all the challenges the team has faced so far this season, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
“The field held up well,” Roth said. “Obviously, there’s still lots of signs of storm damage. It’s going to take a while to get everything back to normal, back to a new normal, I guess. But, you, know, the kids played hard tonight. There’s a lot of adversities we’re facing with us practicing off campus. We have to hitch rides with seniors and I’m giving kids rides to the practice field, but none of that should be an excuse.
“We have a field and we have a football. We have to show up and we’ve got to practice better.”
Statistically, the Pirates had a decent night. Luckey completed 16 of 26 passing attempts for 205 yards and 1 touchdown. He was sacked twice and rushed 4 times for 21 yards.
Wheeler had 16 carries for 77 yards and a touchdown and caught 2 passes for 43 yards. Leuckel caught 4 passes for 60 yards and a touchdown and rushed twice for another 17 yards. Xyzavier Wilson had 8 yards rushing on 2 carries and caught 4 passes for 55 yards, while Joshua Gremaud had 8 yards rushing in one carry and made 5 catches for 42 yards.
Perryville and DeSoto combined for more than 20 penalties in the game.
“We’ve just got to learn,” Roth said. “We’ve got lots of young guys that are growing up. We’re trying to get them to grow up fast, but our older guys made mistakes tonight, too.”
Roth said that, in the grand scheme of things, one loss just matter, as long as his team can learn from it.
“You can still be conference champs,” Roth said. “You could still be district champs. You can still be state champs. We can be champions. We just need to get everyone locked in.”
Perryille heads across town Friday to take on the St. Vincent Indians (0-2), who suffered a 42-7 loss to Valle Catholic on Friday. The Indians hold an 8-1 advantage in the crosstown rivalry, with Perryville’s only victory coming in 2017 when they beat St. Vincent 48-26. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
