PIASA – Unfortunately for the Southwestern High School football team, it’s once again fighting a numbers game.
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Those numbers continued to drop with guys like junior quarterback Blake Rimbey and senior linebacker Ryan Lowis coming out of Friday night’s 55-6 home loss to the Pana Panthers.
The Piasa Birds fall to 1-2 on the season while Pana improves to 3-0.
The Birds received to open the game but would eventually punt on 4th-and-13 from their own 45-yard line. The Panthers took over at their own 16. Two plays later junior wide receiver Cash Lynch ran it in from 72 yards. Parker Moore took it to the pylon for the two-point conversion and it was 8-0 after the first quarter.
Piasa showed life with a score to open the second quarter when Rimbey found senior wide receiver Ian Brantley with an eight-yard touchdown pass. The Birds went for a game-tying two-point conversion but were stopped short.
That was just about all she wrote for Piasa on the night as things went from bad to worse.
On the following kickoff, Lynch took it to the house 98 yards followed by another successful two-point conversion to make it 16-6. Then the Panthers recovered a controversial onside kick right at the 50-yard line and proceeded to take advantage a few plays later making it 22-6.
After Piasa’s TD, Pana scored 47 unanswered points. The Panthers scored eight times on the night by seven different players.
Piasa head coach Pat Keith knew his side was in some trouble after those two bang-bang plays.
“They run the kickoff back and that’s a gut punch,” he said. “They get the onside kick, that’s another gut punch. We’ve got to get better, but we’ll get better week by week.”
It’s a Piasa team that is getting more dinged up as the weeks go by, facing one of the South Central Conference’s best.
“We just had a couple of guys injured last week. We’ve got a couple of guys banged up this week,” Keith said. “We’re starting to wither down with lower numbers and play some younger guys. We just have to get better and young guys are going to have to step up a little bit.”
The Piasa Birds will take on Vandalia (2-1) next Friday.
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