A late touchdown on a trick play was what Tecumseh needed to give the Cougars their first loss of the year on Friday.

ND fell 12-7 after a tight end pass led to a long gain and the eventual winning score.

“That was a difficult loss for everyone. It came down to two plays in the game. Other than that, we didn’t make any mistakes and I felt like we executed the game plan. We held a good running team to 28 yards,” said ND coach Scott Helms.

“There were plenty of positives that we will take out of that game.”

This week the Cougars face former ND product Brian Crabtree and the North Central Thunderbirds. Crabtree has picked up wins in each of the three seasons he has coached in Farmersburg. In fact, Crabtree posted a pair of 8-3 seasons the last two years and is 19-14 for his career, however, they did fall to Dugger, 48-8 last week.

“They are a well coached team,” added Helms. “They will really spread the field against us. The two areas that we will have to work on this week are pass rush and defending the pass.”

One thing that the Cougars will not have to worry about is the running of Michael Woodsmall. Woodsmall graduated with almost 5,000 career yards.

Helms said that his own running game was impressive last week, as Dalton Sellers had 82 yards on 20 carries and was involved with 20 tackles on just 28 defensive plays. Ryan Webster also played well, while Helms was also quick to point out the play of Casey Bell on the line.

“Casey had a career game for us,” said Helms. “We counted seven or eight ‘pancake’ blocks in that game.”

The Cougars will start at 7:30 p.m. this week and the CCYFL flag teams will play at halftime. The game can be heard on WRZR.