Published: October 13, 2008 09:10 am      

Mings, Rams must rebound

By JEREMY HALL

jeremy.hall@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — Blaming himself for his team not closing the door on Cahokia on Friday, Mt. Vernon football coach Dan Mings said he knows avoiding a hangover from the tough loss will require an effort that starts with himself.

The Rams pulled ahead of the Comanches 29-25 with 27 seconds left in the fourth quarter on Friday before Cahokia moved the ball 80 yards on three plays to win in the closing seconds.

Mt. Vernon now will have to rebound from the loss in time for this week’s homecoming game against Centralia. At stake is a potential fifth win for the Rams, a win that would make them eligible for the playoffs for the fourth straight year and sixth time in eight years under Mings.

Immediately after Friday’s game, Mings was down on himself while praising the effort of his players.

“Coach Mings cost us a football game,” he said, “something I don’t take a lot of enjoyment in.”

Mings was blaming himself for calling for a timeout on his team’s final scoring possession of the game. The timeout came before a third down and goal at the 1-yard line with 30.7 seconds remaining in the game.

“No need to call a timeout in that situation,” he said. “We’re rolling. We’re doing everything we need to do. Coach [Jeff] Lonnon is doing a great job. [It] left them too much time.”

“What you do next” has long been a driving force used by Mings with his players. This week, he turns the table on himself.

“The thing that separates the human race, to me, is one thing — the choices you get to make,” he said. “Nothing else in the world gets to make an educated decision about what to do next. We do.

“I’ve got to make a choice. I’ve got to come back ready to go, fired up, watching film and doing the things that we need to do to make us successful. And we’re going to do those things. We’re definitely going to do those things. That’s how you bounce back. You just have to make the choice to do that.”

SOLID EFFORT: Throughout a four-game win streak that saw Mt. Vernon perform with dominance at times, Mings said the Rams had not yet played “great.”

While he stopped short of saying as much on Friday before seeing film of the game, he did acknowledge the effort that allowed his team a chance at victory against the Comanches.

“We played pretty darned good,” he said. “That’s what makes it hurt so much. We played for four quarters as hard as we could play.”

The Rams took a 9-0 halftime lead after Cahokia committed three turnovers and held the ball for just 4 minutes, 11 seconds in the first half, garnering just 35 yards of total offense.

PASSING GAME: The Rams got their first passing touchdown of the season in the second half when quarterback James Mulvaney hit Eric Fowler in stride for a 76-yard score. For the game, Mulvaney completed five of eight pass attempts for 151 yards, nearly doubling Mt. Vernon’s passing yardage for the season.

“Jim’s capable,” said Mings.

“Eric’s capable. [Brian] Sipe’s capable. All those guys that were catching passes out there, they’re capable.

“But in the end, doing what we do — running right over the top of them — that’s what we do. And it worked. They couldn’t stop us.”

PREPARATION: Cahokia coach Antwyne Golliday said before the game his starters had not played in a fourth quarter in any of their previous six wins, due to winning all of them by an average of 34 points.

He said his team’s competition was stepping up a notch, with games against the Rams, Althoff and Springfield Sacred Heart Griffin down the stretch of the regular season, and he needed to address that in practice.

“I told the kids after last week’s win the playoffs start this week,” said Golliday. “We’ve been running through folks, bulldozing folks. We gave the starters some extra reps this week because we know they’ve got to play the rest of the year.”