“Too many mistakes on both sides of the ball,” Bulldogs head coach Larry Prince said in explaining how the Llano Yellow Jackets stung the team Friday night in a hard fought battle that saw the Yellow Jackets capitalize on the Dogs’ penalties. In the 39-20 loss, the Dogs racked up 7 penalties for 70 yards, though they won the first down battle 19 to 10. 
           The Dogs started off well, taking advantage of the Llano kickoff team, who kicked out of bounds twice and finally had to kick off from their own thirty, which is where teams kick off in the NFL.  Junior Ryan Walker returned the kick into Llano territory, but the Bulldog offense could not muster a drive as they went three and out. “We didn’t execute when we had to,” Prince said.    
         The Dogs did get another chance after their defense held Llano on their first possession. The Dogs got all the way down to the Llano six yard line when junior quarterback Kyle Monroe attempted a screen pass to back-up QB sophomore Michael Miller, but Jacket Sterling Jameson jumped the route, intercepted Monroe’s pass, and returned it all the way to the promised land 92 yards away, giving Llano the first quarter lead 6-0. 

           The Yellow Jackets went off in a buzz the second quarter scoring 20 points to Bandera’s 6. But the Dogs first touchdown was a special one and hopefully, the first of many in Miller’s BHS career. “ I was excited, I jumped up and lost my mouthpiece. I was going crazy; I thought I was going to get in trouble, but I was happy I pushed it in,” Miller said of the Dogs first TD.
          Coming into the second half down 26-6, the Dogs couldn’t make up any ground as they had to kick off to Llano and the Jackets scored another TD, running the score to 32-6 Llano. But on the Dogs next possession, Walker, who had 20 carries for a whopping 151 yards on the night, trudged through tackles for a hard-fought 3 yard TD, bringing the score to 32-12 Llano going in to the final quarter of play.
          Llano’s potent offense pushed through one final TD on a one yard TD sneak by quarterback Preston Rabb.  Right at the end of the game, Walker was rewarded with another TD, which was set up by a 38-yard pass from Monroe (16-26-173 on the night) to sophomore wide receiver Cullen McGuire.   “It was very exciting; I was just crazy that I caught it, but I cramped up right after I caught it so I didn’t get to enjoy it as much,” McGuire said of his first varsity reception.
        The Dogs went on to lose the game 39-20, but Prince did say that “Bulldogs put in a better effort than last week and he’s proud of their effort” and confident that the team will work hard in practice to correct their misalignments.  The Bulldogs (0-3) make a long trip to Burnet to take on the Burnet Bulldogs (2-1) who won their Friday night game 16-7 against a 4A Marble Falls squad. 
      The online website 3A Downlow (www.3adownlow.com) is running a poll to predict the winner of this game and all Bulldog fans are encouraged to vote for the Bandera team.  Game time is 7:30 at Burnet’s Bulldog Stadium.