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The North Middle School Gators lost to the South Pittsburg Pirates 42-16 at home Thursday in their first game of the season.

The Gators fell behind by double digits early in the contest and weren’t able to make up ground the rest of the way as they started the year with a loss.

North head football coach Chuck Reed said that the result came down to poor tackling from his team with turnovers also playing a factor.

“We just didn’t tackle, period. We have a couple guys which showed up in practice that didn’t show up tonight. It was totally disappointing on the defensive side,” he said. “We had some turnovers that hurt us, especially when we had the first team out, but other than that, we’ve got to fix the defense. It doesn’t matter how much we score. If we can’t stop anyone, we will not win.”

Reed added that his team will need to continue developing its tackling abilities in upcoming practices.

“We’ve just got to find somebody that wants to tackle. In this day and age, we’ve got to find some kids that have that dog in them. We’re still looking,” he said. “We had a couple that showed up, but we need nine more.”

The Gators received the ball to start the game and were ultimately forced to punt it away.

The Pirates then went on a 76-yard drive which ended in a touchdown and a two-point conversion to put North in an 8-0 hole with two minutes left in the first quarter.

The Gators answered back immediately, however, as Logan Polkinghorn ran the ensuing kickoff all the way back for a touchdown. Easton Brandon followed up by running the ball in for a two-point conversion to tie the score at 8-8.

The tie didn’t last long as the Pirates broke off a 53-yard touchdown run on the first play of their next drive to quickly retake an eight-point lead.

The Gators appeared to respond again when Brandon carried the ball for a long rushing touchdown, but the score was nullified by an illegal-formation penalty, and the Gators were forced to punt later in the drive.

The Pirates put up another touchdown on their next possession to boost the deficit up to 22-8 with 4:19 left in the first half.

A fumble by the Gators a few plays into their ensuing drive set up another South Pittsburg score in the final minute of the half to push the lead up to an even 20 points.

The Gators trailed 28-8 at halftime.

The Pirates wasted no time adding to their lead in the second half as their first play from scrimmage in the third quarter resulted in a 44-yard touchdown to put the score at 34-8.

The Gators lost another fumble on their next drive after briefly crossing into enemy territory, and the Pirates capitalized with another touchdown to bring their advantage up to 34 points with five minutes left in the third quarter.

The Gators then put together their longest drive of the day as the 65-yard possession ended in a touchdown run by Polkinghorn with Polkinghorn also scoring on the two-point conversion to make it a 42-16 game with 4:14 to go in the contest.

The Gators were able to force the Pirates to punt on the ensuing drive, but the Gators turned the ball over on a fumble with two minutes remaining.

The Pirates then ran out the rest of the clock to seal the loss for North by 26.

With the loss, the Gators started their season with a record of 0-1.

They will next play Tuesday at Tullahoma Middle School. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.