LYNN — A handful of mistakes proved costly for the KIPP Academy football team in a 25-0 loss to Manchester-Essex in the Panthers’ season opener at Manning Field Thursday night.
“We couldn’t put anything together because everytime we turned around there was a flag, turnover or some kind of mishap on our end,” KIPP coach Jim Rabbitt said. “We didn’t give ourselves a chance in this game. It’s disappointing, but our guys are fighters and we have strong resolve. We’re going to right the ship. I have confidence in that but (Thursday) wasn’t our best night.”
The KIPP offense didn’t do itself any favors with several key penalties and four turnovers (two fumbles, two interceptions) in the loss.
“I lost track of the turnovers (Thursday),” Rabbitt said. “We certainly weren’t here mentally. That was evident, and it’s on the coaches and players. We had a great week of practice, came here and it seemed like the lights were a little bit too bright for us.”
The Hornets got off to a fast start with a 69-yard touchdown drive to start the night. Quarterback Will Levendusky went 3-of-3 passing on the drive for 25 yards but the Panthers were able to force Manchester-Essex into a 4th-and-8 on the KIPP 21. But the Hornets ran a well executed draw play to Gavin Glass (16 carries for 80 yards and two touchdowns) who ran untouched 21-yards to put Manchester-Essex ahead 6-0 early on.
Each team stalled a pair of drives next before a key turnover helped the Hornets get back on the board. A KIPP fumble gave Manchester-Essex great field position at the 35. From there Glass ran for 23 yards including a 3-yard touchdown to stretch the Hornets lead to 12-0 before the half.
Panthers’ running back Daniel Olwasuyi (10 carries, 79 yards) came out of the break running hard. Oluwasuyi totaled 55 yards on five carries during the Panthers first drive of the second half, but too many penalties led to another stalled drive and an interception gave the Hornets the ball back.
Manchester-Essex got back on the board at the start of the fourth quarter. The touchdown drive was highlighted by two big connection by Levendusky and Frank Wood in the passing game before Levendusky capped off the drive with a 1-yard touchdown to push the lead to 18-0.
Meanwhile, Oluwasuyi left the game with a cramp injury, leaving the Panthers without their bell-cow running back for the rest of the night.
“(Oluwasuyi) is fine,” Rabbitt said. “It was a bad cramp, you could see it in his calf. We couldn’t quite rub it out. He carries the offense. He’s literally the horse of the team. We couldn’t get him going in the first half because of the mistakes. When we did get him going we just couldn’t finish the drive. Him going down I think hurt the guys mentally. But we have to be able to fight through that.”
From there Manchester-Essex dominated on defense and ate away most of the clock. Levendusky connected with Alex Furse for a 26-yard passing touchdown and the extra point capped off the 25-0 win.
The Panthers will have a bye week next before traveling to Chelsea on Friday, September 20.
“We’ll watch the film,” Rabbitt said. “We just have to realize that if we don’t make mistakes were in this game. We can go back and see all those mistakes and start to understand that we can play with them. Manchester was well coached team. We got out coached and out played we just have to limit our mistakes.”
