(Cougar senior Evan Alger blocks another kick Thursday in Bluefield.)
The Pulaski County Cougars suffered a disappointing 41-14 loss Thursday evening at Mitchell Stadium in Bluefield at the hands of the Graham G-Men.
The Cougars started off on a bad note. After returning the opening kickoff for a short gain, the Cougars fumbled the ball at their own 23-yard line and Graham recovered. On their first offensive play of the game, Jacob Shockley found Chris Edwards open in the endzone for a 23-yard scoring strike. Evan Alger blocked the point after attempt, leaving the G-Men up 6-0 with 11:44 remaining in the first quarter.
The Cougars regrouped and began to move the ball. With 9:59 remaining in the opening quarter, Trevor Burton broke through the Graham defenders and raced 33 yards for the score. Nathan Pratt was good for the PAT, leaving the Cougars up 7-6.
And then things went downhill.
Graham put together a 10-play drive that covered 58 yards, with Shockley running the ball in from a yard out. Dylan Nash hit the PAT to put Graham up 13-7 with 11:24 remaining in the first half.
Graham added another score before the halftime break courtesy of another Pulaski County mistake. A botched handoff ended up on the ground. Jamel Floyd picked it up and ran eight yards into the endzone. The kick from Nash was good, leaving the G-Men up 20-7 with 10:30 remaining in the half.
A short kickoff to open the second half resulted in a huge return for the G-Men. Sean Hughes scored on a three-yard run with 11:41 remaining in the third. Nash hit the PAT to move the score to 27-7.
Graham scored on a 57-yard pass from Shockley to Braden Watkins with 3:36 remaining in the third quarter. The PAT by Nash moved the score to 34-7.
The G-Men added a final insurance touchdown with 9:35 remaining in the contest. Alger again blocked the point after attempt, leaving Graham ahead 41-7.
Pulaski County was able to cross the goal line a final time with 56 seconds remaining in the game. Burton broke through the middle of the Graham defense and ran 42 yards to the endzone. Pratt hit the PAT for the final score of 41-14.
“We made too many mistakes,” Cougar Head Coach Cam Akers said. “We fumbled the ball. We missed blocks. We missed tackles. We had some penalties we could have easily avoided. We had opportunities to get back in the game, but we didn’t take advantage of them.”
The Cougars finished the game with eight first downs. Graham had 13. Pulaski County ran the ball 34 times for 188 yards. Graham ran 30 times for 131 yards. Cougar quarterback Christopher Gallimore completed none of his five pass attempts. Shockley completed 11-of-18 pass attempts for 179 yards for Graham. The Cougars had 188 total yards of offense. Graham had 310 yards. Pulaski County was hit with eight penalties for 59 yards. Graham was called for 12 penalties for 125 yards.
One of the biggest stats of the game was in turnovers. Pulaski County fumbled the ball five times, losing three of those fumbles. Graham fumbled twice, but recovered both.
Trevor Burton ran 21 times for 119 yards and two touchdowns. Gallimore ran nine times for 61 yards. Tyler Underwood ran three times for 12 yards. Tanner Mace ran once for a loss of four yards.
“We’ve got to be better than this,” Coach Akers said. “We’re not going to make excuses; we just need to be better. There are going to be some guys who don’t like what they see of themselves on the film. I think we also let some things distract us and get us out of our game. We can’t control a lot of the outside things. We need to focus on ourselves and executing.”
With the loss, the Cougars drop to 4-4 on the season. Graham remains undefeated at 8-0.
The Cougars will host Patrick Henry Friday, Oct. 28, for the final home game of the regular season. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. Fall sports seniors will be recognized before kickoff.