Bethel Battles Through the Rain but Falls Short Against Bethany
Despite strong defensive efforts and a late touchdown from Cherry, the Threshers couldn’t overcome early mistakes in a cold, rainy matchup
Bethel hosted a cold and rainy game against Bethany this past Saturday. Coming off a bye week and back-to-back wins. Bethel was hoping for a win. The first quarter started, and it was pretty uneventful. Bethel couldn’t manage to put any points on the board. During the middle of the first quarter, Bethany returned a blocked punt to the endzone for six.
Not long after, Bethany scores another touchdown to make the score 12-0. Bethel knew that they had to stop them and put some points on the board. In the second quarter, Bethel’s defense stepped up and held Bethany from scoring any more points for the half. But the offense continued to struggle, not quite able to find its footing.
“Defensively, I think we played well enough to win. Special teams-wise, we can’t be giving up touchdowns on a punt, and offensively, we gotta go out there and score,” said head coach Josh Lawson.
Bethel’s offense was able to score in the third quarter; unfortunately, so did Bethany. The Swedes were now up 19 to 8 with the fourth quarter to go. Bethel couldn’t make the comeback when Bethany scored another touchdown. However, Bethel showed their strength in fighting to the last second when Larry Cherry made an 80-yard run for the final touchdown of the game.
With high hopes, Bethel couldn’t quite put another win up. You can’t fully blame the loss on the bad weather, but it certainly had an impact. Freshman quarterback Houston Herrin shared his thoughts after the game.
“Of course, you can say conditions played into it, but you can’t; the conditions were the same for them as they were for us. We just need to be more of a team and uplift each other, and when things don’t get to go that can’t reflect on us as a team,” said Herrin from Apache, Okla.
Herrin expressed his belief in the team and the strong connection they share. Even in defeat, he emphasized that they’re still a family. With better conditions expected on Saturday, Bethel will face Avila for senior night. On what should be an exciting Halloween matchup. With kick off scheduled for 1:00 P.M.