Wildcats Suffer Big Loss To Butler At Homecoming

Darren Doyle, story and photos
With sports, sometimes everything works in your favor. Good decisions are made, plays are executed, opportunities are taken advantage of, and the scoreboard is nice to your team. Those things didn't happen last night for the Wildcats as the Butler County Bears crashed the homecoming party and slammed ECHS with a 49-14 loss at Wildcat Stadium. 

If you left after the first quarter, you're thinking, "What happened?" Good question, because senior running back Daniel Caudill ran a 51 yard touchdown on the second play of the game. Shortly after, sophomore quarterback Tucker Cole finished off an 8 yard carry for another Wildcat TD and sophomore Brett Brannon finished the extra point kick for an ECHS 14-6 lead after the first.

The Bears answered in the second with a touchdown, but their two-point conversion was broken up by Brayden Carey, leaving the score 14-12. The Wildcats then made a solid run but with a couple of miscues and tough Butler County defense, the momentum shifted incredibly in Butler's favor. The Bears put a field goal on the board, but the dagger came when the BC quarterback completed a pass for a 93 yard touchdown. The intensity for the Cats was never the same, and they had no answer for Butler County.

Coach Kyle Pierce shouts instructions to his Wildcats during last night's game.

"I thought our kids played hard, we just ran out of gas," said head coach Kyle Pierce. "You could just tell the difference in the speed and pace of the game for Butler, and not that they're necessarily faster than us, we just got winded."

Pierce was also quick to take responsibility of his own. "From a coaching standpoint, we gotta do a better job of subbing, because we don't play a ton of guys. Lots of guys are going both ways, and we're in decent shape, but both teams are going 'no huddle-hurry-up' and we basically wore ourselves down by doing that."

With the 47-0 win over Caverna last week, EC looked to take some momentum into the homecoming game, however, Edmonson County wasn't playing Caverna again.

"Butler County is a good football team. They made some big time plays, you know that 93 yard touchdown they made...those plays are back breakers," he said. "We're a young team, but at the same time, we could also keep making excuses that we're young and inexperienced, but you know, we're going to be young and inexperienced all year long. So we're going back to the drawing board, get better, and work this thing out."

Hopefully the Wildcats will be able to do just that as they travel to Grayson County next Friday night against bitter rivals as they compete in the annual "Tobacco Stick Bowl." 

"Grayson is an option team, so we'll have to be disciplined, defensively," Pierce said. "Offensively? We're going to have play well. We'll have to execute. You know, we have to stay away from situations like we got ourselves into tonight. There's not a lot a offensive plays to call when you're 2nd and 22, but we're going to get better. If there's a team we can bounce back and get up for, I think it's Grayson County."

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