Dragons fall to Tigers

After opening the 2017 football season at home on the beautiful new turf at Dave Goodwin Field last week with a 48 to 0 lost to Lafayette County Huskers from Higginsville. The young Cameron Dragons traveled to Excelsior Springs Friday night for their second non-conference game of the season vs the Excelsior Springs Tigers.  The Tigers were coming off a very impressive 23-0 win over Warrensburg to open their season and they jumped all over the Dragons from the opening kickoff.

Cameron fell to 0-2 on the season with the 41 to 0 loss to the Tigers. Following the opening kickoff Excelsior Springs took over on their own 40-yard line and quickly moved 60 yards on eight running plays to score the first touchdown of the game. Capping off the 60 yard drive with a 20 yard run by Peyton Soria, after the successful point after touchdown (PAT) the Tigers lead 7-0. On the ensuing kickoff, Elliott Turner had a nice 17-yard return to set the Dragons up in good field position, but the Dragons could not get any offense going and had to punt. Excelsior Springs again scored going 55 yards on three plays with Landon Seely going the final 44 yards for the Tiger touchdown, the point after touchdown made the score 14-0 in favor of the Tigers.

On the Tiger kickoff, Tyler Anderson made a nice 16-yard return of a short Tiger kickoff and the Dragons were on the Ex. Springs side of the field for the first time of the night in good field position.  Unfortunately the Dragons offense could not take advantage of the field position and were forced to punt. After the punt the Tiger went 70 yards in nine plays scoring on a 12 yard run by Soria to finish out the scoring in the first quarter.

The 2^nd quarter was very similar as Excelsior Springs added three more touchdowns and the Dragons continued to show a lack of offensive punch as they finished the first half without a 1^st down. With the 35-point mercy rule in affect to start the second half the Dragons were able to get a few things going in the 3^rd quarter. On a 4^th down and 17 attempts for the Tigers, Joe Bryant was able to spring some momentum the Dragons way with a five-yard sack to stop the Tigers for the first time of the night and give Cameron the ball on the Excelsior Springs 43 yard line. Quarterback Tristan Michaelis ran for eight yards and Nick Sprague ran for four more to give the Dragons a first down. After two running plays in which the Dragons lost four yards, Michaelis connected with Anderson for six yards and on 4^th down Michaelis hit Nick Sprague for 10 more yards to get the Dragons down to the 19 yard line as the 3^rd quarter ended. Beginning the 4^th quarter the Tigers defense stiffened and Nathan Nelson was stopped short of a first down on 4^th down pass from Michaelis.

Offensively the young Dragons struggled all night, running the ball 26 times for 12 yards and completing four of nine passes for 18 yards while the Tigers ran the ball for 365 yards and passed for 54 yards. Defensively the Dragons were lead in tackles by Bryant, Sprague and Rylan Brown with five and sophomore Zach Jones with 4.

The Dragons return home next Friday night and open Midland Empire Conference play looking for their first win of the season against a St. Joseph Leblond, who is 1-1 for the year. Leblond rebounded for a big 27-20 win last week over East Buchanan after a season opening loss to Pembroke Hill by a score of 30 to 27.