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'Cats shake off loss, look ahead to final stretch

• Despite giving up a season-high 80 points to Manchester, the South Georgia Wildcats feel good about their chances in their final four games, beginning Saturday at Florida.

Colin Chmielewski

ALBANY — Looks can be deceiving.

Or at least that’s what South Georgia Wildcats coach Derek Stingley had to say about the 80 points his team gave up in its loss to Manchester. But despite the 80-57 loss (a season-high for points allowed by South Georgia), Stingley wasn’t pointing fingers at his defense.

“The defense didn’t play bad,” he said. “I put the defense in situations to give up those points. I can’t say it was the defense that gave up 80. We just put ourselves in a situation to get 80 points scored on us.”

That situation included falling behind 21-0 after one quarter. The Wildcats allowed two long kick returns that set up easy touchdowns and a D. Bryant pass was intercepted and returned for a score.

“The first thing I thought about when they scored that third touchdown, I turned around and looked up and it was 21-0,” defensive end Ed Wangler said.

“There wasn’t very much time taken off in the quarter. I was just thinking, ‘Man, we’re already behind. We’ve got to do a lot of catching up.’ ”

In order to do that — and with his team trailing 42-13 at the half — Stingley decided to try onsides kicks for most of the second stanza. As the kicks failed, the points piled up for the Wolves.

“We weren’t really able to stop them,” Wangler said. “We had one or two stops the whole game, which it wasn’t enough when you’re down three touchdowns.”

In another sign of the short field Manchester was playing with, South Georgia actually outgained the Wolves, 325-268, in the game. Wangler said he felt like the Wildcats were off a bit in practice the week leading up to the trip to New Hampshire — which he added may have had to with the bye week.

But Stingley said there simply was no reason for the loss.

“I can’t dissect it,” the coach said. “We just played a terrible first half. That was just the worst game of our season so far.”

NO HOSPITALITY

After two solid games in which he threw for 17 touchdowns, Bryant’s return to Manchester — where he played last year before being benched — was anything but pleasant.

Despite throwing for 331 yards and seven touchdowns, Bryant had two costly interceptions — the first of which was returned by Allistair Sebastien for a 23-yard score — that hurt the Wildcats’ chances of digging out of their early hole.

“He played a terrible game,” Stingley said. “His first half was the worst I’ve seen him all year. That’s why we got behind the 8-ball pretty fast because we didn’t come out and execute. The offense is ran by D.”

After the game, Manchester coach Ben Bennett told The New Hampshire Sunday News that his team was fired up by some comments made by Bryant.

“D. said that he wanted to throw 10, 11, 12 touchdowns and sit out the second half,” Bennett said. “D. was mostly a non-factor in the game.”

But Stingley — who also said he was pleased with Bryant’s direction of the hurry up offense, which scored TDs on seven of eight second-half drives — wasn’t concerned with where Manchester got its motivation.

“I don’t read into that, so I really couldn’t tell,” Stingley said. “It just looked like things went their way and they had the home crowd behind them.”

HURTING UP FRONT

The Wildcats’ lines continue to look like a game of checkers. Joe Woolridge still is bothered by groin and abdomen injuries.

While the South Georgia nose guard played the entire game against Manchester, Stingley said Woolridge was not effective and called him “questionable” for Saturday’s game at Florida.

Besides Woolridge, offensive lineman Andre Slappey will be sidelined the rest of the regular season with a back injury. With Slappey on the injured reserve, the Wildcats have brought back Ellington Wills. Wills played one game with South Georgia earlier this season — recovering a fumble for a touchdown against Tennessee Valley — but was then traded to Fort Wayne.

Wills will play offensive line and Courtney Young will play mostly defense.

Wangler said Wills’ experience with the team is a big bonus.

“He’s perfect because he’s been in the system ever since I’ve been in the system,” Wangler said. “He was here at the beginning of the season and last year (in Macon). It’s right there with him.”

ROUGH PATCH

After beginning the year 6-2, the Wildcats are 2-2 in their past four games. But both of those wins came against losing teams and were by narrow margins (46-44 against Corpus Christi and 68-65 against Tennessee Valley).

Stingley said this stretch has more to do with his team’s health than anything else.

“We’re not healthy at all right now,” he said. “It’s a bad time for us with injuries and where we are in the season. I’m hoping we get healthy quick, fast and in a hurry.”

The coach added that his team was fortunate for the most part through the first eight games of the season, but that injuries are part of the game.

“We have to fight through the injury bug,” Stingley said. “And it’s a shame that it’s happening now when it’s towards the end of the season. But every team has to go through it. Every team has injuries. Some teams have it and they still find a way to win. So that’s our job to find a way to win.”

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