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September 3, 2008

Whippets drop season opener on road

By Austin Bishop

Despite losing by 17 points in his first game as a head coach, Kosciusko's Trey Rolison saw some things he was looking for in the Whippets' 41-24 loss to Northwest Rankin on Friday night.

"I was real pleased that the kids never gave up," Rolison said. "That's what we have stressed — compete, compete, compete. They did that."

And even though Northwest Rankin led 20-7 at the half 34-7 in the third quarter, the Whippets just wouldn't go away.

"We tried to make a couple runs at them late, but we just had some breakdowns," he said. "There are some things we are really going to stress this week, including ball security. Maybe we spent too much time trying to put a few extra things in the offense last week, when we should have been working on ball security. But that's something we can improve on."

He also said the defense played well at times.

"We kept holding them on first and second down and then would give up a big play on third down," Rolison said. "We made some good plays, then they would just break one."

Despite being behind by four touchdowns, the Whippets managed to cut it to 34-24 in the fourth quarter when Corvan Greer scored on a 1-yard run and Chris Duncan booted the extra point.

Northwest Rankin came back to score on a 7-yard run b Tom Buchanan to go up 41-24, but the Whippets moved back down the field again, before pass protection broke down and the drive halted.

Rolison said Greer, his senior quarterback, is beginning to get the hang of the offense but knows it may take a little more time.

"That's the way it was at New Albany last year," he said. "We just couldn't seem to get it going early but then after the third game everything just seemed to click. That's what we're expecting to happen here."

Greer had a solid game for Kosy, hitting on 8-of-13 passes for 126 yards and rushing 22 times for 112 yards. John Kern rushed for 36 yards on 10 attempts.

One of the things that really hurt Kosy against Northwest Rankin was the number of turnovers the Whippets made.

"We had way too many turnovers," Rolison said. "We had four fumbles and threw an interception. The special teams also just gave up too much. We can't give people a short field to work with.

"They had 41 points and I don't think they had 300 yards of offense," Rolison said. "They just didn't have far to go."

The Whippets fumbled the ball away on their first possession, but the Kosy defense stiffened and held Northwest Rankin to just three points on a 42-yard field goal by Taylor Walker.

The Whippets then moved the ball down the field and score on a 1-yard run by Kern. Duncan's point after put the visitors up 7-3 after one quarter of play.

The homestanding Cougars retook the lead at 10-7 on a 1-yard run by Chase Taylor, then closed out the first half scoring with a 46-yard field goal by Walker and an 11-yard pass from Taylor to Sam Williams to hold a 20-7 lead at the intermission.

The Cougars built that lead to 34-7 on touchdown runs of 39 and 11 yards by Chad Wright before the Whippets began their comeback.

A 65-yard fumble return by Tre Boyd and Duncan's kick cut it to 34-14 after three quarters of play, before a 35-yard field goal by Duncan and Greer's 1-yard run whittled it down to 34-24, setting up NWR's last score of the night.

Next up for Kosciusko is a road trip to Houston, which dropped a 28-7 decision to Class 2A power Eupora on Friday night.

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