After a big win over West Lowndes last week, the Sebastopol Bobcats seemed to be in the driver’s seat in the Division 3-1A race.
But Vardaman had other plans as they took a 27-6 win over the Bobcats on Friday night.
The Bobcats (4-2) fall to 1-1 in 3-1A play. They will host Noxapater in another big division contest this week.
Sebastopol coach Keith Brown said he knew the Rams would be solid. But the game was more about what his offense failed to do than the opposing team.
“We knew they were solid in all phases of the game,” Brown said. “With the way our division is shaking out, you have to show up and play your best every Friday night. We kind of got off to a slow start and got in a hole early. We had opportunities to score early and make it a different game. We had seven possessions on offense and on our first six possessions, we either turned it over or turned it over on downs inside the 20. We ran a ton of plays; we just have to finish drives.”
The Rams had a strong first half with three scores with one in the first and two in the second as they led 19-0 at the half.
“They just capitalized on our mistakes,” Brown said. “They scored off of our turnovers. We gave them one short field and they had a pick six on another. They only had one long run. We played pretty well on defense, but they took advantage of the short fields. I thought we controlled the time of possession and ran way more plays than they did. We had opportunities but didn’t convert.”
After a scoreless third quarter, Vardaman went up 27-0 with a touchdown and two-point conversion.
Sebastopol’s only score came in the fourth quarter when Kari Michaels hit Tyler Perkins on a 42-yard pass play. The try for two failed and Sebastopol cut the score to 27-6.
The Bobcats had 195 yards rushing and 90 passing for 285 yards of total offense but turned the ball over four times with three interceptions and a fumble.
Michaels was 6-of-11 passing for 90 yards with one TD and three interceptions. Michaels also had 11 rushes for 48 yards. David Williams had 141 yards rushing on 30 carries. Tyler Perkins had four catches for 62 yards while Jess Johnson had 28 yards receiving on two catches.
