OFC: Varsity Panthers drop the ball

The Varsity Panthers fell short when they faced the Burlington Stampeders last Sunday.

The game was hard fought but proved to be out of reach for the Panthers, who lost 54-7.
Panthers head coach Gary Jordan chalked it up to simple mistakes on the field.

“All around, the most disciplined team won the game,” said Jordan. “That’s reflected on the outcome, the score, everything.”

He does, however, believe that the Panthers have more potential than they showed that afternoon.

“The score, by no means describes the kind of team and talent that we have on this team,” he said. “We just gotta get better in the discipline area.”

The Panthers did have a couple things holding them back though, including their lack of any running backs. Due to injuries received in the last game and during practice, all three running backs were out of commission, giving the Stamps’ running defense a significant advantage.

Even without a running game, Jordan said the result should have been a lot better.

“We were down in their red zone quite a few times but we came away with no points,” he said. “It was just mental errors; whether it was penalties or bonehead plays … We had quite a few big plays. We were able to take advantage of some of our matchups, execute part of our game plan. We knew we had an advantage with our receivers against their DBs, so we were able to take advantage of that in a lot of instances during the game, we just we couldn’t finish. We couldn’t finish because of the mental errors.”

Jordan knows where the team needs to improve and plans to have it ready for the game against Forrest City this weekend.

“We’ll be ready to go,” he said. “(The players) have that belief that they are an elite team in this league. They just know that it’s gonna take work in order to get that respect from the rest of the teams in the league.”