Despite having their best offensive output of the year, the Tigers couldn’t put up enough points to keep up with the Owls as they fell to Smith County Friday night 47-34.

“Our offense finally got in gear but our defense and special teams didn’t do enough to win the game,” said Tiger Head Coach Steve Trapp of the shootout in Carthage that looked more like a blow out when DeKalb County went down 21-0 early.

The Tigers fell behind when the Owls’ John Ross Ford scampered into the endzone with 1:22 left in the first to make it a 6-0 affair. Eli Martin added to the lead for the Owls at the 9:11 mark, the deficit increasing to 21-0 following an Axel Aldino interception and subsequent Owl score.

Aldino atoned for the miscue with four minutes remaining in the second quarter, hitting T.J. Alexander for 29-yard touchdown pass which capped a 47-yard drive that was set up by a spectacular Desmond Nokes kickoff return.

Grayson Redmon then continued his hot streak of catching touchdown passes as the senior receiver hauled in a 12-yard offering from Aldino to make the score 21-14 at half.

The second half started on a sour note for the Tigers as Eli Martin was able to take the opening kickoff back 91 yards for an Owl touchdown making it 27-14.

Aldino, in his best career game as a starter for the Tigers, marched DeKalb down the field and scored with 8:13 left in the third with a seven-yard run to tighten the score at 27-21.

The Owls answered the Tiger volley with John Ross Ford finding the endzone for the second time with a 15-yard run making it 35-21.

Things began to go wrong for the Tigers at that point as a stalled drive led to an errant snap that gave the Owls the ball on the Tiger eight. Running back Apple Gibbs immediately made them pay with an eight-yard dash making the score 41-21.

Tiger running back David Bradford made it a bit tighter as the third quarter neared an end, scoring from four yards to make it 41-28. However, Eli Martin scored his third touchdown of the night, galloping 45 yards to put the game to bed. Bradford would haul in a five-yard pass from Aldino for window dressing to put the final score at 47-24.

“Had just four plays gone differently, we may have had a much different outcome,” Coach Trapp said of the bad snap deep in Tiger territory and the run back of the second half kickoff by the Tigers. “We figure if we can score 21 points, we should win most games. We did more than that but there were too many mistakes on defense and special teams for us to pick up the victory.

The Tigers fell to 2-6 with the loss. They will travel to Macon County for a key district match up this Friday with kickoff at 7 p.m.