Zizzers fall to Branson Pirates attack

Sometimes in a football game, a team beats their opponent outright. 

 

And sometimes a team beats themselves.

 

Both happened to the West Plains football team against Branson last Friday, September 20.

 

The Branson Pirates beat the Zizzers in the first three quarters, but in the fourth quarter West Plains beat themselves.

 

In the first quarter, the Zizzers were able to limit the opening drive of the Class 5, State-Ranked #9 Branson Pirates to a 39-yard field goal. But on the next series, Branson picked off a Zizzer pass that led to another seven points. West Plains was behind 0-10 at the end of the first quarter.

 

West Plains faked a punt with a brilliant pass play to keep a long offensive drive going that ended in a 10-yard touchdown pass from QB Jones to Wide Receiver Jacob Moore for a touchdown and extra point kick. The Zizzers closed the scoring gap to 7-10. 

 

Branson answered with a quick touchdown, and Zizzer Jacob Moore picked up a fumble and ran it back 75 yards for a Zizzer touchdown. Another PAT kick by Reid Cobb was no problem. The Zizzers kept it close at 14-17.

 

The Pirates scored again to send the Zizzers to halftime down 14-24. 

 

It looked like the Zizzers might pull off an upset in the third quarter when the Zizzer defense held the Pirates scoreless and the WP offense scored on a beautiful 37-yard pass from QB Jones to WR Moore. The score at the end of the third quarter was 21-24.

 

But then the wheels came off the bus for the Zizzers. In the fourth quarter, the Zizzers beat themselves by throwing two interceptions, and gave up a quarterback sack, a blocked punt, and two deflected passes. Branson scored 22 points in the first four and half minutes of the fourth quarter. All of a sudden -- the score was 21-46.

 

The Zizzers held on for as long as they could, but fatigue and the swarming defense of the Pirates was too much. 

 

As Zizzer Head Coach Joel Wyatt said, “It’s kind of like when we played Mountain Home, those bigger schools that have a lot of guys on the roster, they don’t have kids playing both sides of the ball the whole game like we do. It just wears us out.”

 

West Plains fell to a 2-2 record and will meet Logan-Rogersville, who is 1-3 on the season, for the Homecoming Game at Zizzer Stadium, September 27.  Kickoff is at 7PM.