The Superior Central football season got off to, falling 40-0 to the Cedarville-DeTour Islander in Eben Junction on Friday, Aug. 25.

“The first half was rough. I don’t know if it was nerves or what, but it seemed like we struggled overall,” SC Head Coach Josh Trader said.

“The second half was much better all around.”

The Islanders got out to a 22-0 lead in the first quarter after a couple of Cody McPhail touchdown runs and a Jayden Mclure pass to Jakob Lee. But despite the final score, those were the only drives of the day for C-D where they had a first down before scoring. The other three touchdowns were either busted run plays where the runningback reversed the field or a punt return for touchdown in the second quarter.

“We had a lot of bright things to look at in our game and some big plays and opportunities from our young guys,” Trader said.

Compared to last season, there were two big stats to give the Cougar faithful some hope: the turnover margin and the passing yards. SC had over 100 passing yards in the contest, something they did not do in any game last season. Drew Begovac and CJ Adams both took snaps under center and both had multiple completions.

The Cougars had a -1 turnover margin, losing four fumbles on the day.

One of those fumbles occurred on a fourth down, so the result of the play would have been a turnover on downs anyway. Cole Ozoga picked off the C-D quarterback once and Chris Kulik had two forced fumbles for the home team.

Superior Central has one of its toughest road games of the year this week, traveling to Pickford. The Panthers beat Gaylord St. Mary 40-22 in their season opener and is known to run the ball well, according to Trader.

“It will be important for us to fix the things we struggled with. They are a good running team and I can guarantee they are going to look to pound the outside after they see our film,” Trader said. “We just need to play sound football and minimize mistakes and we will do much better.”