Game
Article The second annual
"Battle of the Bridge" took place at Kenneth J. Dobson Stadium
Friday night, and while new Head Coach Todd Jones and his staff were able
to make some good adjustments at halftime, they were just short of coming
away with a win as the Radford Bobcats took the trophy back home with them
to Radford. While the 32-29 score
surely shows it was a close game, the stats will show you just how close
it was. Pulaski County finished the game with 12 first downs.
So did Radford. The Cougars rushed the ball 44 times for 247 yards,
a 5.6 yard per carry average. Radford carried the ball 42 times for
218 yards, a 5.19 yard average. Radford had the edge in passing, and
the Cougars certainly hurt themselves with the penalties (10 for 55 yards
vs. Radford's 3 for 13 yards). Pulaski finished with 266 total yards
of offense, while Radford finished with 305 yards. Both teams had
problems with turnovers. Pulaski lost three fumbles in the contest,
while Radford lost three fumbles and were intercepted once. There were several things
that I saw from the sidelines that I liked. I saw the intensity that
I've heard about Coach Jones, but I also saw the calm he and his staff
used when working with the players. I was very impressed with the
attitude the coaches and players had throughout the game, even though they
were down most of the time. The Cougars fought back and played
their best. It would be easy to go to the "well we missed a
bunch of practices" excuses, but Jones told his kids no. He won't
make an excuse, and he told his team that he was proud of them for the way
they fought. Would he have loved to win his opener as a Cougar?
I think the answer to that question should be obvious. Sometimes you just get beat
though. Tonight, Pulaski County got beat. IF we had made a few
more tackles, we might have won. IF we had gained a few more yards,
we might have won. IF we hadn't had so many turnovers or penalties,
we might have won. The problem is that we did have those things
though, and we didn't win. Tomorrow morning the sun will come up,
and I would expect that by sometime tomorrow afternoon there will be a
working plan in place to get the team ready for Northside. You can't look back, and
you can't wonder about "IF". These Cougars and their
coaches will continue on in their season, and they will get better as they
continue to catch up with the rest of their opponents. Make no
mistakes though, those opponents are going to continue to get better too.
Another thing to remember is, as Coach Jones told his team, "the
other teams don't care if we had less practice, or if we had less
scrimmages, they just want to beat Pulaski County." I'm
sure if one were to drive through Radford tonight, there would be some
celebrations going on. I don't blame them one bit, I would celebrate
too. I hate to lose as much as
anybody, maybe more than most. I like what I'm seeing with our
Cougars though. They didn't quit, and they showed a good bit of
improvement from last week's scrimmage with Bluefield. The coaching
staff will continue to tweak things, and in the end Pulaski County will be
competitive with anyone. I'm not sure how things will come out in
the win/loss column, but I want to see how this thing ends up.
Game Pictures
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