Poplar Bluff stuns Dexter to pick up first win of season

DEXTER - The Poplar Bluff Mules, who entered Friday night's contest against the Dexter Bearcats with an 0-4 record, played their best game of the season and upset the host Bearcats 24-0. The Dexter record falls to 3-2.

The Mules' first three possessions of the contest in the first period looked anemic to say the least. In those possessions, Poplar Bluff gained a combined total of 10 yards and were three and out all three times.

Dexter showed some promise in the early going.

After picking up a first down on its first possession of the contest, the drive stalled and the Bearcats netted only 30 yards in its first four possessions.

After a scoreless first period, the second began disastrously for the Bearcats. A bad snap resulted in a sack of the Bearcat punter at the 10:21 mark and put the opportunistic Mules at the Dexter 26-yard line.

From there it took only four downs for Poplar Bluff to score when Todd Tinsley dashed in from the 1-yard line with 9:27 left.

Trell Edington, who had a sterling kicking night, tacked on the extra point to lead 7-0.

Edington added a field goal with two seconds remaining before half and Poplar Bluff led 10-0 at intermission.

"We played defensively well enough in the last couple of weeks to control things but we made mistakes to give people a short field. Defensively I'm proud of the way they played. The first two weeks we didn't tackle well but in the last two weeks, we've gotten better every week defensively, but the scores didn't show it," commented Mules' coach Mike Dormady.

"I thought we were capable of playing like this. You can't give a good team like Dexter a short field and we had a good stand down there and got a turnover. Tonight we were able to capitalize on the mistakes that they made and I'm pleased with that."

The Mules' confidence level rose in the second half as they added two more touchdowns and really controlled the line of scrimmage.

At the 8:21 mark, Tinsley collected his second score on a 7-yard run to make it 16-0. Dexter's Josh Davis managed to block the PAT attempt and the tally remained 16-0.

A roughing the kicker penalty against Dexter on a field goal attempt gave the Mules new life with six minutes remaining in the quarter.

Tinsley capitalized on the opportunity to record his third touchdown on a 1-yard run. A pass on the conversion attempt from Mark Gum to Whalen George was successful to round out the scoring in the game.

"The story of this game is that we did not execute.

Defensively, I thought we played a pretty good football game. We gave Poplar Bluff a really short field from the second until the third quarter and it paid dividends for them. Every time our offense would do something really good, we would do something really bad. It was a game of highs and lows, just when you think you're doing something good, something bad happens," concluded Dexter coach Aaron Pixley.

The win was the 14th straight for Poplar Bluff over Dexter.

Poplar Bluff will host Farmington Friday night in a homecoming tilt while Dexter will host Charleston's Bluejays.