It's hard to turn regular season success into postseason wins, a fact Merkel can now relate to. They fell 43-36 to the Slaton Tigers on Thursday. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game last Thursday (35), the Badgers still had to take the loss.
Despite the defeat, Merkel saw an underclassman step up: sophomore Easton Malone rushed for 94 yards and one touchdown on only 12 carries, and also threw for 163 yards on 14 of 20 attempts.
Jacob Lopez was nothing short of spectacular for Slaton: he rushed for 111 yards and one score on only 13 carries, and also threw for 138 yards and a pair of TDs on only ten passes.
Merkel's loss dropped their record down to 7-5. As for Slaton, the victory was the third in a row for them, bringing their record up to 10-2.
Merkel does not have any more games scheduled as of now. As for Slaton, they will take on Wall at 1:00 p.m. on Friday. The two teams might be coming in a bit winded given these two teams combined for 900 yards in their previous games.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps