Bulldogs fall to Eagles in first eight-man football contest
JASPER, Mo. — When Jake Denzer took over the Decatur Bulldog football program as head coach in July, he only had two senior and four junior high players show up for practice. However, that all changed on Aug. 16 when more than 30 players showed up.
All the practice sessions that Denzer and his staff of four have executed led up to the Friday night road trip to Jasper, Mo., for the Bulldogs’ opening varsity contest against the Eagles.
The Aug. 27 contest kicked off the Bulldogs’ fourth eight-man football season.
Eagle Stadium in Jasper is set up in a true eight-man configuration, which is 40 yards wide and 80 yards long. The center of the field is the 40-yard line instead of a standard 11 man’s 50-yard line.
The Bulldogs came into this contest with several disadvantages, one of which was that the Eagles had already played their first game of the season a week earlier. This showed after the opening kickoff when Jasper ran the ball for a touchdown in two plays.
But more than that, the Bulldogs had another disadvantage that caused them to play a little timidly during the first quarter of the contest, helping the Eagles in scoring three touchdowns and a conversion.
“We were so late getting our mouthpieces,” Denzer explained.” We didn’t get them until yesterday (Aug. 26), so we didn’t have a chance to do full drills for safety reasons. We had a lot of kids that tonight was their first experience playing football and the first time that several wore shoulder pads and knee pads.”
By the end of the first quarter, the Eagles held a 20-point lead over the Bulldogs.
As the second quarter progressed, the young Bulldog team began to gain a little more confidence, but not enough to ward off the Eagle offensive machine which picked up three more touchdowns and two conversions to lead 42-0 by halftime.
During the break, the players were sitting in the locker room trying to figure out what went wrong during the first half. Meanwhile, Coach Denzer met with his coaching staff and came up with a plan to get his team back into the contest.
Each coach took a small number of players from the offense and defense and helped them gain a better knowledge of the game. The plan worked and the Bulldogs played much more aggressively. But the Eagles kept pounding the Decatur defense, amassing a 72-0 lead toward the last five minutes of the contest.
Several of the new players had never played football but instead participated in soccer most of their junior and senior high school years. So, to the surprise of the coaches and players, one of the star soccer players from the 2021 state tournament team did something remarkable.
“Enrique (Rubi), who is a great soccer player, very first football game and he scored his first touchdown, and I think that is something to be really proud of,” Denzer stated.
So the Decatur Bulldogs at least denied the Jasper Eagles a shutout win with the Rubi touchdown. But Decatur still had one more surprise for Jasper.
With two minutes left, Robert Thang broke free from a tackle and found the end zone for the Bulldogs’ second touchdown of the contest. The extra point attempts failed on both touchdowns and the game ended with Jasper taking a 72-12 victory over Decatur.