DECATUR -- Under a beautiful starlit sky on Sept. 14, two teams took the field at Bulldog Stadium in Decatur for week four of the eight-man football league inaugural season. By the end of the night, the Little Rock Episcopal Collegiate Wildcats emerged victorious over the Decatur Bulldogs.
Three minutes into the contest, the Wildcats found the end zone on a short pass from Episcopal quarterback Ty Lazzari to Will Bateman for six. A two-point conversion by Joel Fleming made it an 8-0 Wildcat ball game.
Decatur's Austin Hamilton intercepted a pass by Episcopal's Lazzari at the Decatur 45 yard line, giving the Bulldogs their first chance to score. On Decatur's first play of the possession, Decatur quarterback Cayden Bingham threw a pass intended for Hamilton which was picked off by Wildcat's J.P. Braunfisch, setting up a long touchdown run by Braunfisch on the next play. The Wildcats were up 14-0 over the Bulldogs.
Decatur's Roger Hernandez, on a short pass by Bingham at the Bulldog 40 yard line, ran the ball to the Wildcat 11 for a 49-yard gain and Decatur's second chance to score. The Bulldogs moved the ball to just inside the one-yard line. A fumble by Bingham was recovered by Cole Smalling for the Wildcats. But Bingham redeemed himself by catching Episcopal's quarterback in the end zone for a safety, giving the Bulldogs their first score of the contest and cutting the Wildcat lead to 12.
Episcopal scored two more times on touchdowns by Braunfisch and Lazzari, giving the Wildcats a 28-2 lead going into the halftime break.
The Wildcats continued their domination over the Bulldogs in the second half, scoring two more touchdowns and a two-point conversion by Episcopal's Lazzari and Graham Gordon and taking a 40-point lead into the final three minutes of the contest.
With less than two minutes remaining, Bingham found the end zone on a quarterback keeper for the Bulldogs' only touchdown of the night. Bingham found the end zone one more time for the two-point conversion, moving the Bulldogs to within 32 when time ran out. Little Rock Episcopal Collegiate Wildcats won the contest, 42-10, over the Decatur Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs will make a 286 mile, five-hour trip to Rison (just south of Pine Bluff) to take on the Woodlawn Bears in the stadium at Woodlawn High School. Game time for that contest is 7 p.m.
In other Bulldog news, the Decatur junior high team defeated Episcopal Wildcats in a match played earlier in the evening. This makes the second win in a row for the junior high team which defeated its counterpart in Augusta last week.
Sports on 09/19/2018