Five games and five losses later, the boys varsity football team has the worst record in the Eastern Kansas League (EKL). The football team lost to Blue Valley Southwest with a final score of 28-34 in the Homecoming game.

Going into the game tonight, senior Max Tierney, who scored three of the four touchdowns in the game, said the team was focused on playing hard and winning the game. Head coach Mike Zegunis said the team wanted to execute better after having a slow start to the season.

“We were 0-4, and now we’re 0-5, so you just want to start learning from some of the mistakes that you’ve been making and try to come out and execute better,” Zegunis said. “So that was the mindset: come out, execute, try to beat our opponents.”

BVSW was the first to score after making a field goal with 8:06 left in the quarter. Immediately after BVSW scored a second touchdown with 3:35 left in the quarter, increasing their lead to 0-10, junior Riley Zerni caught the kick return and ran 85 yards, scoring a touchdown. At the end of the first quarter, BVNW trailed BVSW 7-10.

“I think we made our job a lot harder than it had to be tonight,” Zegunis said. “I know we had five turnovers in the first half. It’s just very difficult when you turn the ball over that many times to come back from it and win a game.”

To begin the second quarter, BVSW scored another touchdown, lengthening their lead to 7-10 with 11:14 left in the quarter. With 7:34 left in the quarter, Tierney scored his first touchdown of the game, making the score 14-17. With 3:26 left, BVSW scored another touchdown, making the score 14-24. After BVSW intercepted a pass, they scored a touchdown, making the score 14-31 with 2:00 minutes left in the quarter.

“I think we shot ourselves in the foot multiple times,” Tierney said. “The first half was pretty bad. We just didn’t execute on offense, and we gave up some big plays on defense.”

At halftime, senior Claudia Chen was crowned Homecoming Queen, and Homecoming King will be announced at the dance Saturday night.

The third quarter remained scoreless until Tierney scored another touchdown with 3:32 left in the quarter. This made the score 21-31 with BVSW still in the lead. This was the only time either school scored a touchdown in the third quarter, so the score at the end of the third quarter was 21-31.

“I think we came out with a different mentality,” Tierney said. “We were hitting them harder, and we believed we could win the game.”

With 6:55 remaining in the fourth quarter, BVSW scored a field goal, making the score 21-34. With 6:26 left in the quarter, Tierney scored his third and final touchdown, making the score 28-34. The rest of the quarter was scoreless, so the final score of the football game was 28-34 with BVSW taking the win.

“I thought our kids did a great job of fighting until the very end,” Zegunis said. “They put themselves in the position where we were one play away from winning the football game, so I feel good about that, but it’s disappointing that we didn’t get it done tonight.”

The football team’s next game is Oct. 9 against Blue Valley West at the DAC.