Clinton County finally played its first home game Friday night, despite the county’s “red zone” status due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases during the week.

Even though Clinton County was in the “red zone,” the Bulldogs couldn’t find the end zone as much as it needed to pull off the district win as Monroe County took victory, 36-14.

Friday night’s loss came off the heels of being quarantined for two weeks and being released two days before.

“That only gave us one day of padded practice and then a walk through on Thursday,” Head Coach Rocky Tallent said. “More so than anything was probably conditioning. We hadn’t played a football game in like two days shy of a month.”

Tallent said the first quarter went pretty well as Clinton County scored on its first drive of the game and led the Falcons, 8-0.

The second quarter is when Clinton County fell behind.

“From that point on we had people in our trenches who were gassed,” Tallent said. “Every one was gassed and never could get their legs back under them. We came out after halftime and had pretty good momentum there, but had some things go bad for us.”

Tallent said the effects of the quarantine only showed up on the football field, meaning no players or coaches have been sick or showing symptoms.

“It’s been a mentally stressful year on our kids and our coaching staff,” Tallent said. “Preparing for games and then not getting to play them puts doubt in the kids’ minds. It seems like we never deliver any good news and that’s the nature of the beast this year.”

During Friday night’s game, Chase Stines recorded 98 yards passing with one touchdown and two interceptions. Evan Little, Malachi Upchurch and Stines led the team in double-digit tackles. John Talbott and Landon Brown had one sack each.

“We had some bad breaks,” Tallent said. “It seemed like every time we took a step forward and got some momentum we had to take a step back. We just never could put it all together.”

Clinton County’s next game was scheduled for Friday night with a road trip to Bracken County. On Monday of this week that game was canceled, due to Clinton County being in the “red zone” for COVID-19. According to District Athletic Director Brandon Pharis, a game could be scheduled to make up for the cancellation.

Adam Herald went up for a pass by quarterback Chase Stines in the second quarter of Clinton County’s first home game of the season. Clinton County was defeated by Monroe County, 36-14.

Bryson Cross made a run in the second quarter of Friday night’s game against Monroe County. Clinton County fell to 1-1 on the year with the 36-14 loss.