After his Montgomery County football team lost to the South Callaway Bulldogs 28-22 in its regular season finale on Oct. 21 at Jim Blacklock Field, Harrison Bishop didn’t want to leave the field.

The MCHS senior offensive lineman/defensive linebacker couldn’t believe he played his final home game in a Montgomery County uniform.

“It’s the last time I’ll be playing here,” the 6-foot-tall, 210-pound Bishop said. “It’s crazy. It will never happen again.”

The Wildcats, who won six games a year ago, wrapped up their regular season at 2-7 with the loss to the Bulldogs. It’s also the second year in a row MCHS lost to the Mokane school.

“They might not have the best athletes, but they come to play and they’re disciplined,” MCHS coach John Klekamp said of South Callaway. “They don’t make a lot of mistakes.”

The Wildcats have nine seniors, all of them were recognized with their parents before the game. They are Bishop, Adam Czerniewski, Travis Hill, Gunner Sexton, Matt Clark, Dominic and Brenden Luttrell, Cayden Thurmon and Aiden Brush. Bishop, Czerniewski, Hill, Sexton and Clark have played in the program since they were freshmen.

“Honestly, I had emotions before the game,” said Bishop, who hopes to attend Brigham Young University next fall. “I was in tears before the game started. I felt like I left it all out there. I definitely could have made more plays.”

Klekamp said losing to South Callaway at home was painful for the senior class.

“It’s a tough one,” he said. “It’s a tough one for them to swallow. It’s a tough one for me to swallow.”

Now, the Wildcats are preparing to go on the road to start their district play. They will take on the Clark County Indians (4-5) at 7 p.m. on Oct. 28 in a Class 2, District 7 quarterfinal game. Clark County is located in Kahoka, two hours north of MCHS.

“It’s time to show what we’re made of,” Bishop said. “I know a lot of people think we’re not that great, but I truly believe that our record doesn’t show how good we are. We’re just making too many mistakes. We have to be more disciplined.”

MCHS made four turnovers against South Callaway, which improved to 5-4.

“We made way more mistakes,” Klekamp said. “We had a lot of procedural penalties offensively. Defensively, we had a couple of busted assignments. But the turnovers killed us.”

With 7:22 left in the first quarter, Czerniewski scored a 19-yard touchdown run, then threw a pass to Dominic Luttrell to complete the two-point conversion and tie the game at 8-8. Czerniewski now has a team-high nine touchdowns this season.

“That dude gives it 110 percent all of the time,” Klekamp said.

The Wildcats took a 16-14 lead after getting a touchdown from Hill and a two-point conversion by Czerniewski with just 10 seconds into the second quarter. Two minutes later, the Bulldogs came back to take a 22-16 lead after getting a four-yard touchdown run from Jacob Martin and two-point conversion from Tayber Gray.

MCHS had a chance to take the lead with 7:19 to go in the third, but quarterback Adam Czerniewski was stopped for a one-yard loss at the Bulldogs’ 10-yard line on fourth down.

Gray’s nine-yard touchdown run with 11:19 left in the fourth quarter increased South Callaway’s lead to 28-16. MCHS senior Dominic Luttrell scored a 43-yard touchdown catch with 2:08 to go to cut the Bulldogs’ lead to 28-22.

With the loss, the Wildcats finished 2-5 in Eastern Missouri Conference play.