Zac Thompson runs past the Rams defenders to score his third touchdown of the game. (Democrat Photo/Mark Randall)

Something in head coach Greg White's gut told him that the Wildcats weren't ready to play Paragould.

The team seemed a bit lethargic coming in to the game against the Rams.

Lethargic could best describe the way the defense played in the first half allowing the Rams to rack up 35 points at halftime.

The team regrouped and made some adjustments and played Trumann Tough the rest of the way, shutting down the Rams offense in the second half. Even so, they fell just a little bit short in a 35-32 loss last Friday in Paragould.

"As a coach, sometimes you just have a sixth sense," White said. "I didn't feel like we were ready. We made some adjustments on defense and held them in check the second half, but it just seemed like it took us a half to wake up. And by then it was too late."

The Rams scored five touchdowns in the first half.

Quarterback Tyler Arnold connected with Zach Franks for a 16 yard pass which set up a 27 yard run by Steven Vericker. The extra point gave the Rams a 7-0 lead with 9:04 to play.

The Wildcats drove downfield to the Paragould 10 yard line, but lost the chance to score when quarterback Blaike Jones' pass was intercepted.

Hayden Mosley's catch on third down gave the Rams a third down on the Trumann 45 yard line. Vericker scored again to put the Rams up 14-0 with 15 seconds left in the first quarter.

Zac Thompson got the Cats on the board, running the kickoff to the Paragould 10 yard line then punching through on a 9 yard touchdown run. Luis Gutierrez missed the PAT to make it 14-6.

The Rams answered back on a 1-yard run by Arnold to widen the Paragould lead to 21-6 with 6:51 remaining.

Thompson put the Wildcats right back in it though, breaking away for a 47 yard touchdown run with 5:59 to go. Trumann failed on the two point conversion to make it 21-12.

But the Rams weren't quite done. Arnold connected with Mosely on a 69 yard pass to make it 28-12 with 5:06 left in the first half.

Trumann was forced to punt and the Rams struck again, scoring on a 22 yard run by Trent Woolridge with 2:10 to go to put Paragould up 34-12.

After a good talking to by White during halftime, Trumann made some adjustments on defense and took the momentum away from Paragould in the second half.

"We ended up going with four down linemen instead of three," White said.

The Wildcats high powered offense put the team right back in the game, scoring on its first two possessions to pull within 10 points. Thompson took the opening kickoff to the Rams five yard line then scored on the next play to make it 35-19.

Paragould punted on their next possession which opened the door for another Wildcats touchdown by Thompson, his fourth of the game. The Cats failed again though to convert for 2 points but narrowed the gap to 35-25 with 6:30 to play in the third quarter.

The Wildcats just missed a 43 yard field goal attempt by Gutierrez with 6:39 to go in the fourth, but scored again with 2:08 left in the game on a 7 yard run by Jones to make it 35-32.

Jones finished the night 3 of 12 passing for 20 yards but rushed for 93 yard. Thompson had 16 carries for 182 yards and four touchdowns.

White said the team played a lot better in the second half.

"They came out in the second half determined to make a difference," White said. "And they did. They showed some pride and they showed some guts."

White took some of the the blame for the lapses in defense, admitting that the coaches should have made some adjustments earlier in the game.

"A lot of that was our fault as coaches," White said. "We should have made adjustments earlier on defense. Our kids played hard. I don't think it was as much of a lack of effort as I let on to them. Obviously our kids could have played harder in the first. But we should have made adjustments earlier as coaches. And we didn't."

Defensively for the Cats, Colton Turner had 10 tackes, Tommy Harris had nine tackes and Zac Thompson added seven tackles.

The team also made some uncharacteristic miscues on offense, he said.

"We should have scored two more touchdowns in the first half," White said. "We threw some interceptions and Blaike hardly ever does that. Luis missed an extra point and a field goal and we didn't convert on a couple of 2-point conversions.

"Paragould had a good game plan. They wanted to take the option away from us, and they did. We didn't get to run the option as much as I would have liked. And Blaike didn't have as good a game as he normally has. Zac pretty much carried us the whole game."

The Wildcats take on Gosnell in their first conference match-up of the season Friday in Trumann.

White said Gosnell has a high scoring offense and their defense is going to really need to step it up this week.

"Gosnell is 3-0 and are scoring a lot of points against people," White said. "And we're allowing a lot of points. They run an offense that is real simple. They put everybody in real tight and just run the ball down the field. But we have a better defensive game this week ad I think the kids are going to have to execute better on defense for us to have a chance to win this week. Period. As coach Richardson said, we're going to have to get down and dirty this week. We're that close to being 3-0. But we're not. We're 1-2. We're are going to have to toughen up and play Trumann Tough football."