The Greenville Tigers defense was in top form Friday night on the road in the season-opening battle with the Valley High School Rams, holding their opposition scoreless in four quarters of play.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, they had similar struggles on offense, leading to overtime and an eventual 7-6 loss following a missed two-point conversion.

The Rams received the ball in overtime and put together their first successful drive of the night for a score and an extra point.

When the Tigers received the ball and scored in turn, Greenville head coach Patrick Plott decided to end the game on the next play with a risky two-point conversion.

It was a gamble that failed to pay off.

“I felt like I had momentum on my side,” Plott said. “We tried to go ahead and go for the win, but we didn’t get it.”

But the missed two-point conversion isn’t the only misstep for the Tigers, as Greenville struggled to mount an offense all night.

Plott said coming into Friday night’s contest that establishing a strong run game — and preventing the Rams’ own running game — would be vital to walk away with a win.

But it was difficult for the Tigers to find success either on the ground or in the air.

The Greenville defense was another story, however, as Plott remarked that the Tigers continued their consistently harrowing defensive play that has been the standard since the Tigers’ spring jamboree earlier this year.

“Defensively we played well all night.  Offensively, we played well in spurts, but we just never got a rhythm,” Plott said. “We were able to run the ball some, but not like we needed to.  But we didn’t do well throwing the ball, either.  They just played great defense on us tonight.”
Despite the bitter loss, Plott is hopeful regarding next week’s first region game with Booker T. Washington next Friday.

“We’re going to go in, watch film and see what mistakes we made, and get everything cleaned up and corrected,” Plott said. “We’re going to have a great week next week and bounce back next Friday.”