Aug. 21—LYNDHURST — In their season opener, the Lakeside Dragons may have played well enough to overcome some mistakes or perhaps will enough to overcome a big rushing night from the opposition’s premiere back.
Friday night against Brush, however, they did not play well enough to overcome both in same game.
Brush running back Tannelle Rose rushed for 224 yards and five touchdowns, while the Dragons had a pair of turnovers and missed some key opportunities in a 41-20 loss at Korb Stadium to open the season.
“We can’t make mistakes like that and compete at a high level,” Lakeside Coach Buzz Edwards said. “I don’t know how many turnovers we had, but missed tackles on defense, linemen errors, we have to get better.”
Lakeside came out strong, marching the ball into the Arcs red zone, but came up empty on a fourth-down play;it would be the first of a few good scoring chances that they would fail to take advantage of.
Defensively, the Dragons also looked okay early, getting a three and out to start the game.
On Brush’s second possession, though, Rose got loose for his first big run of the night, a 40-yard scamper to set the Arcs up at the Lakeside 22-yard line.
Two plays later, he was in the end zone, a place that he would visit often throughout the evening. Behind Rose’s strong running ability, along with a Lakeside fumble, Brush built a 21-0 lead and looked to be on its way to a rout.
The Dragons had their moments. Garrette Siebeneck tossed a 5-yard TD pass to AJ Raffa, who juggled the ball but held on and got across the goal line to cut the Arcs lead to 21-7 just before halftime.
Lakeside opened the second half with the momentum by recovering an onside kick, the first of two they would come up with in the game. Each time though, they were unable to capitalize on the good field position.
Unable to sustain a scoring drive, the offense went for the big play instead and connected on a 75-yard scoring pass from Siebeneck to Malachi Matlock, cutting the score to 21-14 with 5:34 to go in the third quarter.
The Arcs answered back with a scoring drive.
But Matlock took ensuing kickoff back 90-yards to make it 28-20 early in the fourth.
The home run plays kept Lakeside in the game, but being unable to consistently move the chains is what led to defeat.
“You can’t throw home runs every single play,” Edwards said. “You’re not going to run or throw for a home run every time. We need to do a better job of hitting singles; getting 5-6 yards a pop instead of 1-2 and negative yards in the pass game.”
The Lakeside defense did come up with a stop deep in their end to get the offense back on the field within one possession. On the first play, however, Siebeneck’s pass was picked off by Damari Williams, setting up an easy touchdown run by Rose.
It was the second touchdown Brush scored off a Lakeside turnover.
Elijah Jefferson led Lakeside in rushing with 90 yards on 15 carries and J’Shon Sanders added 47 yards on 12 attempts. Siebenck finished 8 of 18 for 97 yards with the two TD passes.
Missed chances and the inability to stop the Arcs rushing attack, though, was the difference in the game.
With Madison on the schedule next Friday, Edwards said attention to detail will be the focus to fix much of what went wrong against Brush.
“No question,” the coach said. “When we call run and your job is to pull, you have to pull down. When we call pass and your job is to catch, you have to catch the ball. We have to fix it on Monday and get ready for Madison.”