Sports

Jacks declaw Lions in season opener

By Tyler Ohmann

08/27/2013

The Dakota College at Bottineau football team opened their season last Saturday with a 20-6 win.
Though the Jacks offense floundered they were able to get by Trinity Bible College thanks to a good defensive effort.

However, both sides of the ball had positives and negatives.

“We had a lot of good moments, and some moments we’re not too proud of,” said Jacks head coach Tim Pfeifer. “We just think things are going to get better.”

The game was deadlocked early on as neither team could find the end zone. The Jacks were set up with short fields on a few occasions and even got the ball inside the five yard line twice, but could not capitalize.

“Our defense did a good job getting us some turnovers,” Pfeifer said. “Our offense did a good job of shooting ourselves in the foot a couple times down on the goal line. It just has to get better. If we’re going to get better, we’ll have to get better.”

The Jacks did find the end zone late in the second though as quarterback Shazzon Mumphrey found Dontrael Brown for a 36-yard score.

DCB’s offense struck once again in the third quarter, when given a short field Devon Jackson made a strong run for an eight-yard touchdown, his only carry on the night.

After that score it was the Jacks’ defense that took over.

Later in the third Victor Leavell intercepted a Lions pass and took it back more than 50 yards for a score.

A little while later the Jacks forced the Trinity quarterback to fumble the ball in the end zone. He scrambled to recover, but wound up out of bounds for a safety.

“For the most part the defense played well, gave up a few plays, but we’re going to get a lot better on the defensive line as well,” Pfeifer said. “Things are looking up, and we’re happy with a win.”

The Lions did manage one touchdown late in the fourth quarter, but a Lions player was injured on the extra point, which was blocked. The injury was severe and the game was called in the Jacks’ favor.
Pfeifer noted that the offense was missing a few players who were ineligible.

“We were playing without some players that will be eligible, for our next game,” Pfeifer said. “People are going to complain about our offense, but we actually had three defensive lineman on our offensive line, and we’re going to have more offensive line in our next game.”

“It’s going to make a big difference, because they’ll be able to practice better, and get a lot better timing in practice,” Pfeifer added.

The biggest thing that Pfeifer thinks needs to improve is the DCB red zone offense.

“We can’t get it in the red zone and not score, we just made some mistakes that we have to correct,” Pfiefer said. “It wasn’t for lack of effort. We played hard the whole night.”

The defense was led by Michael Hatcher who had seven tackles. DeAndre Norris added six tackles.
On offense the Jacks were led in receiving by Delqwan Jackson, who grabbed four balls for 63 yards. Mumphrey went 18-of-36 for 207 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

DCB has this week off and they head to Fort Dodge, Iowa to play Iowa Central Community College on Sept. 7.

Their next home game will be the homecoming game at 1 p.m. on Sept. 14 against Cole College.

The Jacks held a moment of silence before the game to honor Dahamone McCarty a freshman last season who was shot in a drive-by shooting in Chicago during summer break.