The Atlantic Trojans went on the road to Shenandoah for a non-district football game on Friday night and came up just short of a victory.  The Mustangs scored the only touchdown of the game with 1:20 left in the third quarter and held on for a 7-3 victory in a hard fought game.

The defenses stole the show for the majority of the game with neither team getting any momentum early on in.  It wasn’t until the end of the first quarter that Atlantic put together the first sustained drive of the game and they kept it alive on the 10th play of the drive by faking a punt and picking up a first down as Gratt Reed took the fake 29 yards to the Shenandoah 21. The Trojans carried that drive inside the 10 at the beginning of the second quarter but ended up settling for a 25-yard field goal from Eric Wieser for the first score of the game.

Both teams traded short drives to end the first half and Atlantic came out with an impressive drive to open up the second half.  The Trojans went 60 yards in 18 plays but came up empty, turning the ball over on downs at the Mustang 22-yard line.  The Mustangs would then take the ball down the field for the only touchdown of the game on a 7 play drive that featured a 34 yard pass completion and the drive-capping 32 yard touchdown run by Kyle Owens.  Jordan Miller added the PAT and the Mustangs would hang on to that deciding margin 7-3.

Atlantic got the ball back with 1:42 left in the game to try to mount a drive but stalled out after just five plays.  The Trojans would have had more clock to work with but a roughing the kicker penalty allowed Shenandoah to keep possession with 3:12 left in the game.  The Trojans did get the ball back at the end of the game with just 5 seconds left for one last try, but a hook and lateral play was brought down quickly to end the game.

Atlantic falls to 1-1 on the season and now gets ready for district play next week at home against Denison-Schleswig.  Shenandoah improved to 1-1 and will enter their district play at Kuemper Catholic next week.