GATESVILLE – Despite an incredible start in the first quarter, the Taylor Ducks let one slip away on the road Friday night as they were edged 34-27 by the Hornets of Gatesville High School.
“We beat ourselves tonight with costly penalties, being undisciplined and things like that,” Taylor head coach Earven Flowers said to his players after the game. “We did do some really good things that are going to show up on film, but we did some things that really hurt us. We got punched in the mouth up front from a defensive standpoint.”
Taylor struck early, and on the second offensive play of the game, Ducks senior quarterback Joshua Mikulencak threw a deep ball to senior wide receiver Treos Richardson, who scored a touchdown to give the Ducks a 6-0 lead.
After the Ducks’ defense forced a punt, the offense continued to roll early. Following some solid runs by junior running back Andrias Fisher, the Ducks struck again when Mikulencak made a great throw in the corner of the end zone to his brother Jacob Mikulencak to give Taylor a 13-0 lead with 7:34 left in the first quarter.
Gatesville’s offense marched down the field and scored on a short touchdown run to cut the Taylor lead to 13-7 with 4:22 left in the opening quarter.
A huge pass gain from Joshua Mikulencak to senior Jackson Meller, a nice run from Fisher and then a Joshua Mikulencak run on a short keeper made it 20-7.
The Hornets responded early in the second quarter with a solid offensive drive of their own capped off by a screen pass for a touchdown to make it 20-14 in favor of the Ducks. Both teams would trade blows the rest of the quarter as that score would hold at halftime.
In the second half, penalties and not being able to stop the Gatesville rushing attack hurt the Ducks, as the Hornets sustained
Photos by Andrew Salmi an offensive drive to tie the game 20-20 with 8:17 left in the third quarter.
The Ducks got a touchdown run from Meller who followed his offensive linemen to make it 27-20 midway through the third quarter.
Unfortunately for the Ducks’ offense, they couldn’t get on the board the rest of the way. Taylor had an excellent opportunity on fourth down inside its own 20yard line to force a turnover on downs, but a blown defensive coverage resulted in a wide-open Gatesville touchdown in the back corner of the end zone to tie it 27-27 with 1:01 left in the third quarter.
Gatesville had their way with the Ducks defense in the fourth quarter, which resulted in a short touchdown with 3:14 left in regulation.
Taylor tried to move the ball on offense with one last shot to tie or take the lead, but the Ducks turned the ball over on downs near midfield with just 1:28 left. Gatesville was able to take a knee and run out the clock.
Flowers expects his squad to bounce back, but there is plenty of work to do if this team wants to get to the next level.
“We took a loss tonight fair and square,” Flowers said.
“That’s on us, but we’ll get it done.”
On Friday, Sept. 1 at 7:30 p.m. Taylor hosts Rockdale at The Duck Pond.
