NATCHEZ – Those who stayed and watched the entire thing may have a hard time identifying just where things went right for Vicksburg and wrong for Natchez.

Don’t blame them – in a contest that lasted more than three hours, featured 11 touchdowns and had a combined 32 penalties, you’d feel dizzy, too, on your way home. But when the Bulldogs walked off the field 40-34 losers to Vicksburg in a game that had a season worth of momentum swings, they could tell you what went wrong.

It was all in the first quarter.

Vicksburg jumped out to a 33-7 lead thanks mostly to Bulldog miscues.

“We came out and felt like we had a lot of distractions that we felt like had an impact on us starting off,” Natchez coach Lance Reed said. “We were just disappointed in our start. We focused on that from last year. We knew how we started against them last year. Then we came out and had penalty play after play. Those are things we focused on for a long time. In order to play 5A football, we can’t make those kinds of mistakes.”

The start was tough to swallow. Even on the Bulldogs’ very first play from scrimmage they fumbled and allowed Vicksburg to take over at the NHS 22.

The Bulldogs, starting the game without some key starters, struggled to get things in the right direction after that.

“That first play is always a breakdown,” NHS quarterback Jason Bruce said. “We don’t make plays. Some of those guys just started tonight and weren’t too much experienced. We had to sit some of our starters out for disciplinary actions. That was kind of a lesson learned for them when they’re in a game.”

Yet if you ask the Gators about that sluggish start, they may kind of nod their heads and not say much about it. The Bulldogs found a rhythm offensively in the second half and outscored the Gators 27-14 and were an onside kick away from threatening to tie it up.

Bruce ran in a touchdown from 1 yard out with 34 seconds left that cut the lead to seven. Brandon Lewis’ straight-ahead onside kick try was just short of 10 yards, but Vicksburg’s Hugh Norfort recovered it in time to rule out any doubt.

“The main thing is you get a win,” Vicksburg coach Alonzo Stevens said. “We knew they had a good little team. (Reed) has them going the right way. We’ve just got to keep playing. I’m proud of the guys. We made some mental mistakes and did some things we didn’t execute well.”

The Gators had a number of mistakes that would have made Stevens’ stomach turn in the win, and some of it was flukish things akin to their 14-12 loss to the Bulldogs two years ago.

The Gators seemed on the verge of putting it away with less than a minute left holding a two-touchdown lead and on the NHS 3. They ran a play up the middle that looked for sure a touchdown, but the ball popped loose and rolled into the end zone.

Several players thought it may have been dead, but Natchez High’s Travis Isaac scooped it up three yards deep in the end zone and nearly returned it for a score – had it not been for offensive lineman Cameron Bingham to bring him down at the VHS 25.

Six plays later Bruce ran it in from 1 yard out that cut the lead to seven.