Panthers end their season against Doggers

Saratoga Panthers Head Coach Logan Wright knew the Panther football team was going to have a challenge winning the last three football games in the season. He was right as the team faced the top three seeds in the East Conference in 9-man. Unfortunately, losing to all three teams.

This past week Saratoga took on Lingle-Ft. Laramie Doggers. Wright felt the Panthers were talented and his seniors consistent “In any tough competition, you don’t want to give up anything early and quickly,” Wright said. “Unfortunately Lingle ran the opening kick return for a touchdown.” Wright said, once that happened, it seemed like unforced mistakes started to happen.“When the cat is out of the bag with things going wrong, it can be hard to make right,” Wright said. “But that is the first thing in establishing a dominant culture, is making the mistakes and then being able to stop them.” The Panthers were not out of the game until the 2nd quarter. The 1st quarter the Doggers were only up 14 points. Going into the 2nd quarter Lingle scored again, but on a great play by Frank Crimmins, the Panthers scored. “It was 24 to 8 and then Seth (Stevens,) who has been so good on special teams, we drove it to the four yard line,” Wright said. “Then we snapped the ball over our head to the 25 yard line. We went from possibly being 16 to 24 with momentum, to still 8 to 24 and momentum gone.”

The Doggers scored more points and going into half-time it was 41 to 8. Wright acknowledges mistakes have hindered the Panthers during the season. “Some weeks it has been false starts hurting us, some weeks it has been holding,” Wright said. “Out of nowhere we are doing bad snaps. I don’t know what plays into all this happening. But, when you make a run against a good team like Lingle, you have to capitalize on that,” Wright said. “You can’t make mistakes and from a defensive stance, we have to make tackles man to man. We didn’t do that very well.” Wright said in the 2nd half, it just seemed like Lingle scored time after time.

In the end the Doggers won 69 to 8.“ It was not a bad year in the sense we did  better than last year winning one more game,” Wright said. “But did we play to our potential? I can’t say I know that for sure. The one thing I can say, with us winning one more game than the year before, it just makes me want to win more games next year.” Wright said he will miss the seniors who are departing.“ They were such a positive and consistent force in this program,” Wright said. “They are really good to have around and that consistent presence, that nurtured the team in good times and bad times, will be something I will miss most now that the season is finished. They were a great group of players. I am proud to have been their coach.”