Last week brought a disappointing loss for the Chaparrals, it left fans wondering if their football team has a Homecoming curse. After Saturday’s narrow loss to the Kats, with a score of 22-21, fans should be more worried about a cursed season.

Last Saturday the Chaps hosted the Lake Erie Kats in a game that was both winnable and a needed confidence booster following the homecoming loss. However, even though the Chaps put up a much better fight, the scoreboard still reflected a 22-21 heartbreaker.

While the Chaps were able to improve from their lackluster performance from the previous game, they still had many mistakes that added up and came back to bite them. When it came to penalties, there was more yellow on the field than any other color. It felt like there was a flag on every other play. While the Kats were also penalized multiple times, it took a bigger toll on the Chaps. Although the Chaps had 11 penalties thrown their way, the lost a total of 95 yards due to those penalties. This took away many opportunities for the chaps to score and move up the field. The Kats lost an extra 5 yards compared to the Chaps, but they just couldn’t get a good enough lead on them to put the game out of reach. Either way, 23 total penalties are way too many for either team.

They were moved backwards all over the field. But a positive was the ability of the coaches and players keeping a strong mentality, which led them to get the offense going on the ground and in the air; a big improvement from last week when they only scored one touchdown. The Chaps knew they needed to make changes.  Saturday showed they could be dynamic on the offensive side of the ball. The explosive touchdowns came late in the 2nd half with an 81-yard touchdown pass and run to put them in lead. An interesting change was moving quarterback Even Scales to wide receiver, and it paid off with his first touchdown catch.

The Chaps continued their stellar defensive performance from last week with multiple defensive stops against the Kats. Whether it was batting down the ball, breaking up passes, stopping the run game, or sacking the quarterback they were there to make plays. But the side of the ball that had the best play of the game was special teams. They blocked a field goal, and then, on the Kats’ next possession, special teams stepped up again with pressure to force the Kats’ kicker to miss another field goal on the next offensive drive.

What was so sweet turned sour. The Chaps were in the clear, or so it seemed, and were one drive away from winning. Then the unthinkable happened. With a combination of not having the ability to finish up the game, and some penalties, the Kats were able to get the ball down to the Chaparrals’ side of the field and line up for a game-winning field goal.  The Kats connected on their only successful field goal attempt of the game when it counted most and stole a victory by 1 point.

The Chaparrals now have an overall record of 3-3 with their second to last home game coming up next Monday night.

The Chaparrals need to find ways to get back to scoring 40-plus points and holding their opponents to less than 20 as they did earlier in the season. They haven’t been able to get the momentum they needed to get back to winning games,  but they need to find ways to fly back to the top of the scoreboard before it’s too late.