Cougars fall to Riverdale Ridge in overtime

Niwot head football coach Nik Blume doesn't consider his team's 14-7 overtime loss to Riverdale Ridge on Oct. 16 a moral victory, but there's no doubt he was much happier in the aftermath than he was after the Cougars' 50-14 blowout loss to Holy Family the week before.

"I'm not going to come out of a loss saying great things, but what I do know is that every kid we have gave us everything they could have given us, 100 percent. I think the lesson we're going to learn is that you can be assignment-sound the whole game, and the one time you have a busted coverage, you can give up a touchdown. So there are tons of teaching points, and tons of things to learn from this, but it stinks."

The Cougars were particularly effective on defense against the Ravens, holding them to just 47 yards passing and seven regular-time points. Junior Craig Wright, Niwot's offensive hero against Holy Family, was the star on the other side of the ball against Riverdale Ridge, with an interception and at least two key deflections. The Cougars also had two sacks, several hurries, and nearly blocked a punt.

"We had a solid game plan coming in and went to a four-man front," Blume said. "Last week against Holy Family, we did too much moving around, especially up front, and it was simple tonight to keep Cam Lucero and Bryce Nemec in one spot. We just got to move the guys behind them around a lot. We repped that a lot, we knew they were a true spread team coming in, and knew they were going to throw the ball around a lot, so we made that the focus."

On the other side of the ball, however, it was a different story. Quarterback Ayden Bartko and his crew had trouble moving the ball down field, and managed only six first downs on the night. The Cougars finally got on the board near the end of the third quarter when Easten Leatherwood ran it in from the 2-yard line for a touchdown. Jesus Amaya then kicked the extra point, putting Niwot up 7-0 heading into the final frame.

Niwot held the Ravens scoreless until midway through the fourth, when the Cougas gave up two long runs that eventually led to a short running touchdown. At the end of regulation, the score was tied at 7-7. Unfortunately, it took Riverdale Ridge only two plays to score a touchdown in overtime, and the Cougars were unable to answer. Niwot went on to lose 14-7.

"We just couldn't go score tonight the way that we would have liked," Blume. "Consistency is king, and that will be the message coming out of this week. When we do things right consistently, big things will happen."

One notable area of improvement Blume pointed to was in the turnover differential. After turning over the ball eight times against Holy Family, the Cougars managed to hold on to the ball against the Ravens, and it definitely made a difference, Blume said.

"We talked about in practice how you can't have seven or eight turnovers in a game and expect to win. Tonight we didn't do that, and we were right in the fight. That was the message during the week-on the little things, and attention to detail, we're right there."

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