El Dorado had one of its best offensive outings of the season, but a laundry list of miscues proved too much to overcome Friday in a 41-31 loss to Benton at Memorial Stadium. The Wildcats lost a fumble, threw two interceptions and had two punts blocked as they fell to 1-6 overall and 0-4 in 6A-West action.
The Panthers improved to 4-3, 4-0 with their fourth straight win.
El Dorado’s Eli Shepherd threw for 333 yards and four touchdowns, completing 14-of-27 passes. Steven Tollette had six receptions for 232 yards and three touchdowns with Devunte Kidd adding three catches for 71 yards and a TD as the Wildcats exploited a speed mismatch on the outside.
But in the fourth quarter, El Dorado’s offense was on the field with Shepherd, Kidd and starting running back Alex Hicks all on the sideline with injuries. The Wildcats were 0-for-7 on their final pass attempts of the game.
“They’ve got a lot more team speed that we’ve got. We just backed our guys off and played a little cover four, tried to make them beat us underneath and not give up the big one after they busted us early in the third quarter,” said Sheridan coach Brad Harris. “We try to play a very attacking defense with tight man coverage a lot of times, but we couldn’t do it tonight because they had too much speed for our guys. But, real proud of kids like Cade Clark, who got two interceptions after he got beat early. It was a blessing for us to get (Kidd) out of the game. I hope he’s not hurt too serious or anything, but it was good for us.”
Even without Hicks, the Wildcats started to move the ball on the ground in the second half behind Devunte Yarbrough, who finished with 53 yards on nine attempts.
But the mistakes … oh the mistakes.
The Wildcats led 31-24 after Shepherd hit Tollette on a 75-yard touchdown pass with 4:02 left in the third.
Benton drove deep into El Dorado territory before the Wildcats forced and recovered a fumble at the 1-yard line. El Dorado was forced to punt with the Panthers taking over at the 29. Four plays later, Jaden Woolbright bulled in from three yards out. Bryan Araujo booted the PAT, tying the game with 11:45 left in the fourth.
The Wildcats gave the ball back when Cade Clark intercepted Shepherd at the 38. Five plays later, Casey Johnson scored on a 1-yard run to put Benton up 38-31 with 9:54 left in the fourth.
El Dorado’s next possession ended in a punt and Woolbright’s second block of the game. Woolbright went straight up the middle to get a Panther paw on the ball, which landed in Cade Smith’s arms. Smith ran into the end zone but was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct on the play, putting the ball at the 17.
El Dorado’s defense held, and Araujo kicked a 31-yard field goal, pushing the lead to 41-31 with 5:12 left in the game.
Clark would end the Wildcats’ next drive with his second interception of the fourth quarter, this one thrown by Sharmon Rester.
“We had some one-on-one situations when we were in our 21 personnel. We were able to take advantage of that,” said El Dorado coach Steven Jones. “When Kidd went down, Jackie Washington was in there. We felt like we could still make plays with him. They adjusted to it, went two-high safeties the rest of the game. We were able to start running the football a little bit more. But, after the turnover and the blocked punt, we were playing catch-up again.”
Benton began two possessions at the El Dorado 4-yard line and had another short 29-yard trip to the end zone. The Wildcats’ defense held on a goal-line stand at the 4 and stopped another drive, recovering a fumble at the 1.
“Defense played awesome tonight. They did a really good job,” said Jones. “We put them in a bind at times with field position and they kept responding and kept fighting. The effort is there and I’m real proud of them.”
Benton threw the ball for 175 yards and had 192 yards on the ground. D’Anthony Harper rushed for 127 yards on 21 carries.
El Dorado scored on its first possession when Greysen Hubbard kicked a 35-yard field goal with 9:07 left in the first.
The Panthers answered with a 91-yard drive. The key play was a facemask called when El Dorado appeared to have dropped Benton for a loss on third-and-4. Woolbright would score on a 1-yard run. Araujo’s kick gave the Panthers a 7-3 advantage with 4:51 left in the first.
The Wildcats answered with a 92-yard drive, capped by Shepherd’s 62-yard touchdown pass to Tollette, who spun away from a defender before dancing into the end zone. Hubbard’s kick gave El Dorado a 10-7 lead with 3:03 left in the first.
Both defenses finally arrived in the game with back-to-back stops. Benton started another drive, marching to the 3-yard line. But, on fourth-and-goal from the 5, the Panthers lateraled to the back, whose pass to an open receiver was off the mark.
El Dorado couldn’t hold the momentum of the defensive stand for long as it lost a fumble on the very next play. The Wildcats’ defense held again after first-and-goal from the 4 before Araujo kicked a 20-yard field goal, tying the game with 6:38 left in the second.
El Dorado’s defense came up big again when Mario Ganter intercepted a pass and returned it to the Benton 5-yard line. On fourth-and-goal from the 2, the Wildcats elected to go for it, but Hicks was stopped for no gain.
Jones was asked why El Dorado didn’t kick the go-ahead field goal.
“We had the ball at the 3-yard line and felt like we could score,” he said.
Benton took over and drove 98 yards in 10 plays with Harper scoring on a 7-yard run with 24 seconds left in the half, giving the Panthers a 17-10 advantage at the intermission.
El Dorado decided to flaunt its speed advantage in the third. Shepherd hooked up with Kidd on a 60-yard touchdown pass, tying the game with 10:14 left in the quarter.
After a defensive stop, Shepherd threw a jump ball to Tollette, who made a leaping catch over a defender and waltzed into the end zone for a 33-yard touchdown, giving El Dorado a 24-17 lead with 7:22 left in the third.
El Dorado’s defense stopped Benton again. But a pair of holding penalties destroyed the Wildcats’ offensive possession. On fourth down, Woolbright busted up the middle to block the punt, giving Benton the ball at the 4. Woolbright would score on the next play, tying the game with 4:18 left in the third.
“Little things, it’s just little things – missed block and somebody slips through,” Jones said of the punt blocks. “We get it fixed or feel like we do, and it happens again. It’s one of those things we’ve got to work on.”
For the Wildcats, that’s three punts blocked in two weeks.
“We’d seen on film where they’d had one blocked earlier. We felt like we could pressure the middle,” said Harris. “Jaden Woolbright, he does a great job of that. We’re not always trying to block it but we’re always trying to apply pressure and if they allow the block, we’ve got one guy there for it. That’s what it was. We didn’t sell out for it, but Jaden does a great job of splitting that wedge and he did a great job on the goal-line to block that one and the second one, to get a hand on it. He played a monster game for us.”
Still, the Wildcats fired back with a one-play, 75-yard drive as Shepherd hooked up with Tollette, putting El Dorado on top 31-24 with 4:02 left in the third.