By Devin Smith

A week removed from a lopsided loss at the hands of Pike County the Goshen Eagles once again fell on Friday night, this time to the Luverne Tigers by a score of 32-15.

The Eagles played a much better game this week and hung in with the Tigers for three quarters before Luverne pulled away by scoring 19 points in the fourth.

“We made plays happen tonight,” said Eagles head coach Bart Snyder. “Much better than we did last week. Definitely a lot closer than it was, we wanted to improve as a group from game one and in game two that was there.”

Late in the second quarter Goshen held a 9-0 advantage before Tigers Preston Sankey returned a punt for a 40-yard touchdown with 48 seconds remaining to cut the lead down to just two points.

“That was huge, going into the half 9-0 makes a huge difference,” said Snyder. It changes how they play and the mentality on their side.”

The return was a crippling blow to the Eagles, and one that Snyder feels should have played out in a different manner.

“I can’t come out and say what I want to say,” said Snyder. “But the truth is there are things that should have happened on that play that didn’t happen. Human error maybe, but we’re in this game to play it and that’s the way it ought to be done.”

With momentum on their side the Tigers then took the opening offensive play of the second half 69-yard to the house for a 13-9 lead and would never look back.

Goshen had a few big plays of its own, including a 68-yard touchdown pass from Deangelo Orum to Steve Rogers to increase the lead early.

The defense was also much improved from the squad that allowed 49 points against Pike County last week and apart from the few busted played the ultimately decided the game Goshen was very consistent.

“The number one thing is that our guys got 100 times better than what they were last week,” said Snyder. “Their effort was better, we played an extremely good football team last week but we played an even better one this week and we went toe-to-toe with them for 3 quarters. I’m very proud of our guys.”

Snyder wasn’t the only head coach on the field that was impressed with the performance put on by the Eagles in the game, Tigers coach Mike Dubose also had positive things to say about Goshen.

“Well we were fortunate to win,” said Dubose. “Goshen played better than we did, they were coached better and were better prepared, they deserved better than what they got.”

The Eagles now turn to New Brockton at home looking to make the next step and add a notch to the win column.