Heading into the 2008 season, Le Mars' football head coach Jim Boyd had two concerns: special teams and ball security. Boyd had good reason to worry as those two components came back to haunt the Bulldogs in a 41-7 loss to Lewis Central on Friday in the first ever meeting between the schools.

After struggling on offense in the first series, the Bulldogs punted away to LC's Denver Lohnes who proceeded to take the punt 82 yards the other way for an early 6-0. With the ensuing extra point attempt, Le Mars found itself down 7-0 barely two minutes into the game.

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Things only got worse from there as Le Mars fumbled the kickoff and LC's Dalton Germann was able to score from 20 yards out on the fumble recovery.

With the next possession, the Bulldogs fumbled the ball away again and Lohnes took the ball in from one yard out to pull the sixth-ranked Le Mars squad down 21-0 after just six minutes of play.

"I had two concerns heading into this game - ball security and special teams," said Boyd. "And it came true. It came back to bit us in those six minutes. They hadn't really even ran their offense and we were down 21-0."

"If anything could go wrong, it did. It was just one of those night."

The Bulldogs finally got on the board in the third quarter when junior Brayton Ringsdorf punched it in from the two-yard line and later added the extra point to make it 21-7.

However, the momentum changed quickly again as a special teams breakdown allowed LC's D.J.. Gnader took the following kickoff 88 yards for the score to put the Titans back on top 28-7.

Two big plays in the fourth quarter - a 47-yard pass by Germann and a 40-yard run by Gnader - put the game out of reach as the Titans went on to punish the Bulldogs 42-7.

"We just couldn't move the ball offensively," said Boyd. "The team that really beat us was ourselves. The good thing about this whole thing is that if I find a few healthy running backs for now and our defense continues to get better, good things will happen for us."

The two squads matched each other with nine first downs each but the difference in the game was turnovers as the Bulldogs fumbled five times - losing four - and were intercepted twice. The Bulldogs rushed 31 times for 131 yards and had four pass completions for 60 yards and two interceptions for a total of 191 yards of total offense.

LC rushed 41 times for 183 yards while completing two passes for 67 yards and a touchdown. The Titans finished with 250 yards of total offense.

Quarterback Tyler Candor finished 3-14 passing for 49 yards and was intercepted once. Backup Scott Borchers had one completion for 11 yards and was also intercepted once.

Ryan Baue led the Bulldogs in rushing as he had nine attempts for 38 yards including a 20-yard scamper. Candor rushed 11 times for 35 yards while Ringsdorf had four attempts for 23 yards and a score.

Chris Bergquist led the team in receiving with one catch for 25 yards while Baue and Anthony Schimek each had a catch for 12 yards.

Defensively, the team was led by Pat Rosacker who finished with eight total tackles. Baue had seven tackles while Ringsdorf had six. Rosacker also had two tackles for losses.

"It wasn't one individual who had a bad night. It all kind of snowballed. If we can stay calm and re-coach then we can look forward to the next game," said Boyd. "This game is done. We need to learn from it and move on. Our focus is now on Central Lyon. You have to play competition to get better. We need to play to find out what adjustments we need to make."

The Bulldogs will host Class 2A second-ranked Central Lyon/George-Little Rock on Friday night at Jim Lorenzen Field. CL/GLR is coming off of a 20-14 victory over rival West Lyon who is ranked third in Class 1A. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m.