Dragons pick up first win after early stoppage

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Cameron High School Dragon Football Team picked up their win 22-6 over the Southeast Kansas City Knights, but the victory did not come without a little controversy due to an early stoppage.

With tensions rising as the Dragons looked to lock up their first win while the Knights looked to make it a one-score game, officials called the game with more than 10 minutes left on the scoreboard at the request of the Knights’ coaching staff.

“I went over and talked to their coach. He said the kids were getting a little bit chippy on their end, and his kids were getting little frustrated. I get that. They were struggling, we were up, and he thought it would be best to end that game. I told him ‘No hard feelings.’ For me, I thought his kids played well. We played about as bad a football game as we can.”

At the time of the stoppage, the Dragons hoped to put the game away after racking up an 18-point lead on touchdowns by senior running back Kaydan Brown, junior running back Peyton Garr and sophomore running back Hudson Lodder. Despite leading for most of the game, multiple personal foul penalties, turnovers and other miscues prevented Cameron from building momentum until the fourth quarter. Despite assisting his team rack on 307 yards offense, with 288 of that on the ground, senior tackle Caleb Rick feels Cameron’s shortcomings soured what would otherwise have been a sweet success.   

“It felt good to win, but we did not win it the right way. We need to refocus ourselves,” Rick said. “He just had to fire off of the ball hard, play hard and try and keep everything under control, which was kind of tough with everything that was going on.”

READ MORE IN THIS WEEK’S EDITION OF THE CAMERON CITIZEN-OBSERVER, IN STORES WEDNESDAY.