Bearcats fall short on comeback victory over NCE/Ulen Hitterdal

By Coach Mark Bernstrom
What a way to begin the fall sports season. The state originally said there wouldn’t be a football season until spring. Then they overturned that decision about a month ago, to have a condensed season this fall. Now, here we are one game in and activities are making life feel a little bit more normal around here. There are a lot of accommodations that are in place, but the boys of fall are back at it again.
This past week KCC traveled down to Ulen to take on the Titans for the first game of the year. The Bearcats have a young team this year with over half the team starting varsity for the first time. This will be a good test to see how the team chemistry will look and what aspects this young team will need to work on.
The Bearcats took the opening kickoff and put the offense to work. After gaining a couple of first downs, the offense sputtered around midfield and had to punt. Ulen took possession of the ball and started to chip away yardage against the Bearcat defense. The defense wasn’t giving up any big plays but had a hard time stopping the Titans from converting first downs. The defense made the Titans earn every yard, but they did eventually punch it in for the first score of the game to start the second quarter. With a successful 2-point conversion, the Titans took an 8-0 lead.
On the ensuing kickoff, Chisum Schmiedeberg took the kickoff 88 yards for a touchdown. With a successful extra point kick by Isaac Folland, the Bearcats came within one with the score 8-7. On the next Titans possession the Bearcats forced a turnover and made good with the opportunity. Adam Gustafson took a run wide and ran 30 yards for the score. The extra point after was no good and the Bearcats took a 13-8 lead into halftime.
Titans took the second half kickoff and started to put together a drive by chipping away like they did on their first score. They used up most of the third quarter on their only drive, and finished it with another score and successful 2-point conversion. Titans retook the lead 16-13. The Bearcats had chances throughout the first part of the fourth quarter to regain the lead, but couldn’t find the breakout play to do it. With less than 5 minutes to go the Titans were putting together a drive by once again chipping away at the Bearcat defense. The defense made a big play with less than 2 minutes to go. They finally got pressure on the quarterback with a strip sack on a fourth down play to take over the ball. The young Bearcat group went into a 2-minute offense that worked their way down the field to put them into striking distance for a chance to win the game. With a throw into the end zone as time expired the Titans picked it off to seal the win. The Bearcats didn’t come away with a win on the night, but showed a lot of positives for a young team that starts only one senior this year. The defense showed a lot of fight and didn’t give up the big play, and the offense put themselves into a position to win the game. The rest of this altered season will be enjoyable to watch.

KCC    0    13    0    0-13
NCE/Ulen    0    8    8    0-16

Offensive Leaders
Passing
Braden Faken 3/5   25 yds
Receiving
Adam Gustafson
2 rec 19 yds
Rushing
Gustafson
13 att 76 yds 1 TD
Chisum Schmiedeberg
7 att 49 yds/88 yd
kickoff return TD
Defensive Leaders
Schmiedeberg  10.5 tackles
Isaac Folland     7 tackles
Gustafson      5.5 tackles
and 1 interception