COVINGTON – The Covington Buccaneers battled extremely hard in all four quarters against a very athletically gifted Northridge team, but lost by the score of 44-14.
The score didn’t tell the entire story as the grittiness, toughness and overall effort the Buccaneers put forth on the field was phenomenal. Unfortunately, the difference in the game was five big plays Northridge was able to put together against the Buccaneer defense – all resulting into touchdowns.
The five plays resulted into touchdowns consisting of 77 yards, 50 yards, 40 yards, 73 yards and 28 yards – all in sequences where the Buccaneer defense had Northridge behind the chains. Those five plays accumulated 268 yards of offense and Covington limited the Polar Bears to 277 combined yards on all other plays.
Plus, the Buccaneer defense forced two turnovers, one via fumble and another on an interception by freshman Jordan Miller. There were several other opportunities for Covington to record more turnovers, three on fumbles Northridge recovered and two potential interceptions that were dropped by the Buccs – one that would have resulted into a pick-six.
Offensively, the Buccaneers made some big plays thanks to the hard-nosed running by senior Derrick Meyer and several great caches by sophomore Day’Lynn Garrett.
Meyer, who was selected as Homecoming King prior to the game, ran like a man possessed all night. He pounded out 76 yards on 17 carries and picked up five of Covington’s nine first downs by not surrendering to one-on-one tackles.
Day’Lynn Garrett had 90 yards receiving on five catches and scored on a beautiful 12-yard pass from freshman Landin Cassel. Several of Day’Lynn’s catches were in tight coverage where he fought for the ball.
Covington’s special team units also played extremely well outside of one play late in the game where the Buccaneers failed to recover an onside kick by Northridge. Outside of that one play, the Buccs played very disciplined on special teams, which resulted into an 82-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Day’Lynn Garrett and two successful extra point kicks by freshman Filip McMaken, who has been working extremely hard all season on his kicking technique.
The end result on the scoreboard is what it is, but the Buccaneers had so many more positive plays in the game than negative plays. Unfortunately, the negative plays are what affected the final score.
