Pender falls at home to Clarkson/Leigh

The Pender Pendragons lost 58-50 at home to Clarkson/Leigh Friday night in a game heard on 107.9 the Bull.

Both teams scored 14 first quarter points. The Pendragons won the second quarter 14-12 to go up 28-26 at halftime.

Clarkson/Leigh outscored Pender 20-8 in the third quarter to lead 46-36 at the end of three.

The Pendragons notched 14 fourth quarter points compared to 12 for the Patriots.

Senior quarterback Dylan Roth was 14-19 passing for 156 yards with two touchdowns and an interceptions.

He added 106 yards rushing on 19 carries, and scored twice. Jared Tyrell notched 92 yards rushing on 11 carries, including a touchdown. Tyler Nelson had 77 yards on 9 carries with one score.

Braden Peters made 10 tackles while Leland Bowder totaled 9.

Pender totaled 456 yards of total offense compared to 400 for Clarkson/Leigh. The Pendragons rushed for 350 yards, but gave up 367.

Head Coach Andy Welsh was pleased with Roth and the rest of the team. "To be honest you go into a season and you don't know what you're going to have. You practice against yourself all year, you don't know what the opponent's going to do. You really don't know how you're going to play against opponents. And you got to come out blind. And I was pretty happy with the way we came out. We did some really good things offensively. Defensively, we had stops, we had guys there, but they have a heck of a quarterback. He's going to score a lot of points this year. And we just made too many mistakes at the end to capitalize on those things. It was a fun game to be in, unfortunately we were just on the wrong end of the stick."

Pender (1-0) travels to Ewing on Friday to battle CWCE (Chambers/Wheeler Central/Ewing).

CWCE blew out Niobrara/Verdigre 58-0 at home this past Friday night.

CWCE is obviously a very good team, but so are the Pendragons.

Pender has to be feeling optimistic about their chances on Friday.

I say that because I think a lot of people felt the Pendragons would beat Clarkson/Leigh, but it didn't happen.

Perhaps Pender will be better served playing the underdog role.

Whatever the case may be, the Pendragons have to go out there and be ready to give CWCE all they can handle for four quarters.

Pender has to go into the game expecting to win, and can't play not to lose.

It's never easy to bounce back from a loss, but the Pendragons have to do what they can to put the game with the Patriots in the rearview mirror.

Nothing can be done about it now, all Pender can do is continue to improve on offense and fix some things defensively.

Defense is going to be big in this game, in my opinion. The Pendragons are going to need to get some stops to have a chance I think.

CWCE pitched a shutout last week while Pender gave up 58 points so we'll see if the Pendragons can do any better on defense, and continue their outstanding offensive play.