Central Penalties Allow Shelby to Take the Win
Central High School's 14-22 loss can be described with one word: penalties.
Specifically, Central could not get past an excessive number of false starts. In the first half of the game, the Falcons accrued nearly six penalties, with four of them being false starts.
Shelby led the game 8 to 6 in the first half. The Falcons were playing great defense and their running back, Shunkeith Turner, was making big plays. Turner scored a clean 36-yard touchdown which was the first TD of the game and made a 23-yard run as well.
Unfortunately, The Falcons' penalties caught up with them and they were not able to keep their two-point conversion difference in score.
Central's Coach Rodney Bivens has no questions about what his team will take from this game to work on and build on in next week's practices. He also puts a big emphasis not only on penalties but on his team's listening skills as well.
“Defense played hard tonight, but we just need to have a more disciplined football team,” Bivens said. “We have to receive instruction, receive coaching and just listen and go make those plays.”
Although the Wildcats could have had a little more consistency in regard to ball security throughout the game, they were able to exploit the Falcons' mistakes and come out with a win. This made their coach, Zeb Ellison, hopeful for cleaner games from his squad.
“We are working on playing mistake-free football,” Ellison said. “Ball security, just cleaning things up, being more consistent and holding onto the football. We started out really, really slow tonight. I was disappointed in that. I’ve told them all year if you keep fighting, keep fighting and keep it close we will have a chance in the end. As the game went on our guys picked it up and that's all we can ask. Just let them keep fighting.”
Next week Shelby will take on the Marbury Bulldogs at Marbury. Central will see if they can avoid penalties at their next away game against the Selma Saints.