The Scots were down 28-0 late in the second quarter but had the score within 34-25 early in the fourth, and with a reasonable chance to get even closer.

Seniors Kru Boyle, Dashawn Gordon and Jaylen Milton electrified the game with multiple big plays and scores.

Head coach Ty Smith emphasized just how close the Scots were to a win in the postgame huddle: they gifted North Sevier two touchdowns via unforced errors, and nearly recovered two onside kicks.

But his main takeaway was his team’s will to keep playing hard.

“The thing is, it’s correctable mistakes. That’s something to build off of,” Smith said. “These kids, literally, if they will play that hard, we’ll win some ballgames. If they play with that effort, we’ll win some ballgames.”

Ben Lomond conceded a 12-play scoring drive on North Sevier’s opening possession, fumbled on a third-down option pitch on their own first drive and ceded another touchdown to go down 14-0 with 3:39 left in the first quarter. They rarely stopped Wolves’ bruising running back, Zander Christiansen.

BL called two timeouts in a quick span to get its personnel and alignment correct. Things got better when the defense got a fourth-down stop

After that, the special teams recovered a North Sevier muffed punt, but the Ben Lomond offense fumbled again a couple minutes later, gifting North Sevier’s Chasen Woodside a scoop-and-score and a 21-0 Wolves lead at the 6:54 mark of the second.

That lead became 28-0 on a fourth-down TD throw from Houston Mickelsen to Bridger Lyon.

Boyle thought he had a return touchdown on the ensuing kickoff, only for a late block-in-the-back penalty to bring it back.

No matter, as Scots quarterback Madden Bentley lofted an 18-yard TD throw to Boyle in the back corner of the end zone; Boyle wrestled the ball from a defender to get BL on the board, down 28-7 at halftime.

“Still a lot of kids that don’t know football and I think that’s the hardest thing, and you saw it in the first half, just the little things. Overall, I’m super pleased,” Smith said. “Defensively we made some stops, made some great things. We gotta get on the film, we gotta keep teaching football. Kids made mistakes tonight, not for lack of effort, but because of not truly understanding some of the little things of the game. That’s why they call us coach, we gotta do some things.”

Ben Lomond’s kick-return game fired off in the second half and often gave the offense great field position.

The Scots received the ball to start the second half and made it count with an 11-play scoring drive, capped by Gordon’s short TD run to close the gap to 28-13. BL went for the onside kick to try and capitalize on the momentum of 13 unanswered points, and the ball just bounced out of reach of a BL player along the sideline.

North Sevier scored a few plays later to go ahead 34-13. Almost as quickly, Ben Lomond sliced down the field and Milton walked into the end zone from 1 yard out to cut the lead to 34-19 with 5 seconds left in the third quarter. Milton scored again early in the fourth quarter following a fumble recovery, closing the deficit to 34-25.

But after Ben Lomond got the defensive stop it needed, the Scots gifted North Sevier the ball by muffing the ensuing punt.

The Wolves recovered at the Ben Lomond 1-yard line, scored and went ahead 41-25 with 10:11 left.

A late TD throw from BL’s Keenan Hayman to Milton, and a successful two-point conversion, cut the lead to 41-33. Just as in the earlier attempt, the ensuing onside kick had a good bounce, but corkscrewed just out of reach.