Dublin Lions ended their first district game against the Merkel Badgers Friday, Oct. 6 with a 47-21 loss but a strong fourth quarter showed that Dublin fights until the very end.
The bounce back came after a first half of stops and errors which saw Merkel scoring four times before Kyson Gilman caught an 18 yard pass from quarterback Kaden Gaitan to put the home team’s first points on the board.
Ayden Vargas followed this shortly with a seemingly effortless interception but the half ended before any more could be added to the scoreboard.
“We moved the ball well,” said head football coach/ athletic director Greg Hardcastle, allowing that the team needs to work on capitalizing on their positives. “We talked to the kids at halftime and told them we could have had four scores in the first half. If we try to eliminate turnovers, we’ll do well.”
The Lions were behind 7-27 as the teams returned to the field but couldn’t gain ground in the third quarter as Merkel scored three more TDs.
Lions then took control and stopped Badger scoring in the fourth and score twice more themselves as Gaitan rushed the ball into the endzone and Gilman completed a 30 yard pass play.
Aidan Hernandez assisted by going 3/3 in PAT kicks.
Gaitan passed for 177 yards across the game and rushed for 69. Cameron Patton also rushed for 47 yards and Aiden Salyer had 33 yards in rushing.
Gilman led in receiving with 55 followed by Hernandez with 50, Francisco Garcia with 29 and Sev Ruiz with 24.
The 1-5 Lions hit the road this week to play 3-2 Millsap Friday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m.
“They got a big win against Comanche to start district,” said Hardcastle. “They’re gonna play sound football, but they’re not quite as big size-wise.”
He still said the opponents have a solid defense allaround and are going to ‘mix it up offensively.’
“We’ve got to prepare for that,” he said.