Tough night in the rain for Rockies in finale loss to Concord
Story courtesy of The Pilot News.
DUNLAP — The Plymouth Rockies season is beginning to sound like a broken record. Another night of positives that turned into a 46-6 loss to Concord to end the regular season.
It was another night of positive offensive possessions in the red zone but no points.
“At 14-0 we were in the red zone and turned it over, 21-0 in the red zone, turned it over,” said Plymouth head coach Adam Handley. “At 28-0, we throw a 60-yard tunnel screen get to the 20-yard line, and three bad plays. I don’t know.”
“I talked to the staff after the game. What’s the disconnect? Where are we messing up? You scratch your head and try to figure it out I guess.”
On a night that promised to be affected by the weather Plymouth’s tough night started on the opening kickoff. The Rockies were on the receiving end but a fumble on the return gave the Minutemen the ball and a short field starting at the Plymouth 30-yard line.
“The kind of night it was we felt like it could be a 21-14, 14-7 kind of game and whoever scores first is in the driver’s seat because you never know when the rain is going to come,” said Handley. “Another one of those opening kickoff things, we fumble the ball and you lose a possession. You think you are going to have the ball, go down the field, and score first. Instead, we’re back on our heels.”
The Rockies recovered and had success on offense especially throwing the ball with Exzander Ramirez hitting on quick slants and run-pass option plays to slot receivers Aden VanDusen and Aiden Blalock but once in the red zone, self inflicted wounds — penalties and negative plays — would wash out a promising drive.
“When success happens we seem to act like ‘well that shouldn’t happen’ instead of trusting what we are doing,” said Handley. “Trusting the plays, trusting the game plan, and then bad things happen.”
Another bad thing was watching Ramirez go down late in the first half on one of those promising drives. Ramirez was trying to escape the pocket and make a play down field when he was hit near the Concord sideline and twisted around.
“It could have been really bad,” said Handley. “We’ll get him in tomorrow morning and get him checked out and see what the diagnosis is from there. You watch the film and it could have been catastrophic.”
“The type of kid he is he was asking if he could go back in after they popped it back into place,” he said. “He’s sitting on the training table telling us he’s good to go. We told him he needed to pump the brakes and sit it out. That’s a testament to his toughness and his grit for this program.”
Plymouth ends the regular season at 2-7 and will have a first-round sectional game at home on Friday against South Bend Washington.
•CONCORD 46, PLYMOUTH 6
at Concord
