Friday night’s loss was the not the way the Goshen Eagles wanted to begin the 2015 season. In a non-regional matchup against county rival Pike County, the Eagles were outmanned and fell decidedly to the Bulldogs 53-0.

From the very beginning of the game Friday the Eagles just could not get anything going against the physical front seven the of the Bulldogs defense.

On the game’s second play the Eagles fumbled the ball into the hands of a Bulldog defender who scampered into the end zone, putting the Eagles down 6-0 early after Pike County failed on the two-point conversion.

“We are a lot better football team than the way we played tonight,” said Eagle head coach Bart Snyder. “Pike County is a good team. You can’t put the ball on the ground and you cannot, not finish plays. We have to finish.”

Although the Eagles came into this game Friday night with some in-game experience having played a half of football last Thursday against McKenzie, they went up a against a team with a full game under their belt.

Untimely turnovers, poor tackling and poor assignments were the theme of the night for the Eagles.

“We are a good ball team and we are 100 times better than what we showed tonight,” Snyder said. “The people of Goshen deserve a much better showing than what we gave them tonight. We are going to get better.”

The offense did have a few moments in the second half but for the most part the offense was held ineffective throughout the game.

“The things are there we just need to execute and we have to believe in what we are doing and stop being so insecure about what we are doing,” Snyder said. “If we don’t it is going to be a long season.”

The Eagles offense finished with less than 100 yards Friday night and failed to get a first down until early in the third quarter.

The big blow for the Eagles was turnovers, having finished the game with two fumbles on the night, one of which was returned for a touchdown while the other was when they were knocking on the door to score inside the redzone.

The Eagles best offensive threat Friday night was on the ground. Goshen finished with 47 yards led by Cory Peterson who finished the game with 23 yards.

Brock Snyder and Zach Alford followed suit with 12 and 11 yards.

Snyder and the Eagles were relying on solid play from second year quarterback Kendrez White. White finished the game going five for 15 for a total of 11 yards on the night.

Next Friday Goshen will try and bounce back when they kick off region play. The Eagles will host Luverne at 7 p.m.

Snyder and the rest of the coaching staff will get back to the basics in hopes of rebounding after the loss on Friday night.

“We have to work on ourselves and get confident in doing our job,” Snyder said. “We can’t let anyone else dictate how we are going to play. We need to play Goshen football regardless of what anybody else does on the football field.”