Chelsea lost to Lansing Sexton, 21-14, in a game that finished well after midnight because of more than 2-hour weather delay Friday night.
The Big Reds got off to a lightning fast start against the Bulldogs with a 89-yard TD pass and a 2-point conversion Friday night, going up 8-0 at 11:46 in the first quarter.
The visitors then added another 7 points to make it 15-0 at the end of that quarter.
Chelsea put its first points on the scoreboard in the second quarter when QB Scott Crews ran into the end zone for 6 points and Dominic Triveline kicked the extra point, making it 16-7 with 1:09 to go in the half.
It was a score that remained unchanged in the third quarter, although the Bulldogs started to move the ball better in the second half and get a handle on their defensive coverage as well.
At 9:02 p.m., with 8:46 left on the clock and Chelsea moving the ball, the game was delayed for lightning. When the teams came back onto the field, Sexton scored again with 6:01 to play.
Then Chelsea answered with a 7-yard TD keeping the Bulldog hopes alive. But, the game ended with Sexton heading back to Lansing with a 21-14 victory to begin their season.
“We went in and made some adjustments that we wanted to make,” said coach Brad Bush. “Then sat around for about an hour and a half.”
He said the team “went in and kind of treated it like a halftime and went back over what we were preparing to do. We liked our plan, thought we had a good plan, but we were scrambling a little on offense because we lost some guys during the game that were hard to replace.”
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(Chelsea Update would like to thank Rich Retzler for the quotes in this game story.)