The Tigers battle Queen City, Clarksville, DeKalb

Queen City

Linden-Kildare opened the season with an away game against rival Queen City.

The dubbed Cass County Clash was won by Queen City by a score of 14-0. Linden fought hard against its inner county rivals but could not get their offence going. “Defensively I thought we played well enough to win the game.” said head coach Derrek Coach Simmons.

Coach Simmons felt the effort wasn’t completely lost, “Our defense kept us in the game but we did not make enough plays offensively to help our cause. We dropped too many passes and missed too many assignments.”

“My initial thoughts are that we made a lot of first game mistakes. Our execution was not good a lot of times. I know we are running a new offense and it showed at times but we just did not execute the way we needed to. We had too many negative plays and kept ourselves in long down situations all night which were hard to overcome. The good thing is most of our mistakes are easily correctable,” said Simmons.

When asked about how the kids have dealt with COVID up to the game Simmons said, “Our kids and coaches have done a great job dealing with COVID and all the restrictions that go with it. Right now, that has not been an issue for us and I’m proud of the job that everyone has done in dealing with it.”

Vincent Peters totaled 14 total tackles with four of those solo tackles and three sacks, Rollie Patterson added three solo tackles, Karson Bynum had nine total tackles, Brent White had a sack, Landon Liles had three tackles, Tate Mitchell had four tackles and Colton Anderson posted five total tackles.

Offensively the Tigers had 143 yards total with 42 yards gained on the ground and 92 yards through the air.

Mason Johnson had 47 yards passing and Jonathan Owen had 45. Russell Nance compiled 57 yards on the ground and Jordan Swanson had three catches for 55 yards.

Clarksville

Editorial Note: We received the information shortly after we went to press. This is the coach’s thoughts after the Clarksville game.

Linden-Kildare hosted Clarksville Sept. 4, at Jack Hetherington-Tigers Stadium in a battle of blue and white Tigers.

L-K took an 8-0 lead into the half after Tae Mitchell scored on a running play and Mason Johnson helped punch in the 2-point conversion.

Clarksville scored nine points in the third quarter and ended up winning the contest 9-8 on L-K’s Senior Night.

Mitchell ended the night with 73 yards rushing and a touchdown, Russell Nance had 93 yards on the ground and 12 receiving yards, and Johnson added 14 yards on the ground and 12 yards through the air.

Overall the Tigers put up 184 yards offensively. Through two games Nance has 150 yards rushing and Mitchell has 84.

Defensively Vincent Peters led all tacklers with eight takedowns, Tate Mitchell added six, Colton Anderson and Brent White had five apiece, and both Landon Liles and Rollie Patterson had four each.

The Tigers are back at home this Friday night against DeKalb with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m.

Coach Derek Simmons thought they played well again on the defensive side of the ball. “Once again played a great defensive ball game but continue to make too many mistakes on offense. Too many missed assignments and too many turnovers. Can’t do that against good teams and expect to come out on top.”

On offense Simmons said that he “did see improvements. Our running game was much better. We got great production from our FB and TB. We showed some signs up front of becoming a good offensive football team. Our Secondary played excellent.”

“We knew Clarksville was good defensively. They had speed all over the field. We felt like though for most of the game we controlled the line of scrimmage and was able to move the ball effectively between the tackles. Turnovers again were probably our main problem on the offensive side,” said Simmons.

DeKalb

The Tigers played back-to-back home games and Sept.11, DeKalb came to town for a good night of football.

The Tigers lost to the Bears 28-0.

Mason Johnson completed four passes for 41 yards, Tae Mitchell had 21 yards on the ground, Russell Nance had 19 rushing yards and Jordan Swanson had 34 yards receiving.

Defensively Brent White led the way with seven tackles, Vincent Peters added five and both Tate Mitchell and Landon Liles had four each.

The Tigers play James Bowie on the road this Friday night with kickoff slated for 7:30 p.m.