INDEPENDENCE — A promising start to the game eventually turned into a long night for the Independence Bulldogs.
Tied at 6-6 midway through the first quarter, IHS could manage nothing else offensively as it dropped a 36-8 non-league decision to El Dorado in the season opener Friday night at Emmot Field.
“We need to get better, and we’ve got to not have mistakes,” said Carl Boldra, who began his 15th season as Bulldog head coach and 30th season overall in coaching. “Right now, we’re not good enough to overcome those mistakes. If you never played the first game, you would never know what to work on. You’ve got to learn from it. If you don’t learn from it, you’re not going to win the next one. So we’ve got to learn from this and get prepared for the next one.”
Independence dropped to 0-1 overall heading into the Sept. 7 Southeast Kansas League opener at Labette County. That will be the first of three straight road games in SEK play for the Bulldogs.
IHS hung tough early in its season opener. Trailing 6-0 following a 54-yard touchdown run by El Dorado’s Braden Morgan, the Bulldogs evened things up at 6-6 on a five-yard touchdown pass from Brayden Coller to Wyatt Chism with 5:03 left in the opening quarter.
Yet, the remainder of the game belonged to the visiting Wildcats. Morgan had his second TD run — this time from 40 yards away — to give El Dorado a 12-6 edge after one quarter of play.
The Wildcats extended their lead before halftime on a pair of Jackson Schell touchdown runs — the first from three yards out and the second on a 10-yard scamper with just 52 seconds left in the half. El Dorado went into the intermission up 24-6.
IHS got a little bit of help on a Wildcat miscue early in the second half. A punt snap sailed out of the back of the end zone resulting in a safety for the Bulldogs. Unfortunately, Independence could not take full advantage of that. Instead, El Dorado got a 68-ayrd touchdown run from Morgan to go up 30-8 at the end of three periods.
The Wildcats tacked on one last score late in the contest on a four-yard run by Jake Knowles for the final margin.
Independence finished the game with 150 total yards of offense — 76 through the air on 5-of-12 passing from Coller and 74 on the ground.
Morgan had 200 yards rushing on eight carries to lead the way for El Dorado. As a team, the Wildcats finished with 431 total yards, including 376 on the ground.
