This past Friday, rivals North and South endured a double-overtime game on South’s turf, resulting in a 26-23 win for North.  Though the loss hit deep for South players and students, the team is optimistic about their performance.

“We played real good at times, but we still made too many mistakes,” varsity defensive coordinator Chad Hepner said. “We kind of pulled together at the end of the game, but there were too many errors earlier in the game that it set it up to be a close game.”

Varsity player Owen Chen ’20 said the team met all of their goals except for the obvious one: to beat North.

“I actually thought we played really well, it was just in the end they got the upper hand.  A couple mess-ups is why we lost the game,” Chen said.

North scored first in the second quarter, and by halftime, they were winning 14-10.  In the third quarter, South struck and moved to the lead with the score being 16-14.  By the beginning of the fourth quarter, South was up 17-14, but the Norsemen tied the game in the final seconds.  This led to double-overtime, where South eventually lost.

“Honestly, we had the game, it’s just thirty seconds left and we kinda just screwed up there,” varsity player Lucas Epstein ’19 said. “We were the better team, no doubt.”

Hepner recognized the loss would be hard to recover from, but was still optimistic about the team’s season.

“These are life lessons. It doesn’t always work out the way you want and you can’t pout about it,” Hepner said. “You have to get ready for the next event.  For us, that’s homecoming (this) week.”