LIBERTY — The Liberty Red Devils played host to the Crescent Tigers in a week zero opener and despite an outstanding defensive performance feel short in overtime 6-3.
“Our defense played unbelievable football all night long and the mistakes we have to look at correcting were really on the offensive side of the ball,” Liberty head coach Kyle Stewart said. “Our defense stopped them all night long except for one play which ended being the game deciding score in overtime.”
The first four quarters of play in the regular session were scoreless as neither team was able to get on to the scoreboard and it wasn’t until the Red Devils’ first possession of the overtime period before any points were posted as Dylan McCall kicked a 20-yard field goal to give Liberty a 3-0 lead.
The Tigers answered on a 10-yard scoring run by Terry Hawkins to slam the door shut on an opening game win for Stewart and the Red Devils and giving Crescent the OT win.
“We’re proud of the way our kids played, they battled a lot of preseason injuries coming into the opener, and that put some of our kids on the field in positions they may not have played before or had very little time to prepare for,” Stewart said. “We had opportunities, we just didn’t capitalize on them. We’re proud of the effort, we just made too many mistakes. Our offense had more yards, first downs, and all of that, we just couldn’t get the ball into the endzone when we needed to.”
Liberty has a rare week off this week, which Stewart feels will help where his Red Devils are concerned.
“It’s going to give us a chance to get more repetitions for our kids. Plus any injuries we are dealing with, we’ll have a little time to get those kids healthy,” Stewart said. “We had some mental breakdowns, some of it from it being early in the year along with a little inexperience, and this week will give us a chance to help hopefully build some confidence, especially on the offensive side of the ball.”