Bainbridge started strong in the first quarter of Friday’s scrimmage against Lowndes County, but ran out of gas quickly, coach Jeff Littleton said.

The varsity Bearcats lost 26-9 and the JV-ninth grade team fell 7-0, but the scrimmage served as a starting point for the areas Bainbridge needs to focus on before the season starts on Aug. 26.

“We had some good things that happened,” Littleton said. “I want to go back and look at the film, look at all the positives and the negatives. We have next week off, so we have time to fix that. That’s why we did this scrimmage the first week. We have a week off to correct a lot of mistakes that we have.”

Junior running back Dameon Pierce rushed for 97 yards on 12 carries. He scored on a 2-yard run in the third quarter after a big 43-yard break.

Quarterback Brett McLaughlin was 8-for-22 with 100 passing yards. A big target was Aaron Spivie, who caught three passes for 48 yards.

“We got out-blocked and out-tackled tonight,” Littleton said. “We’ve got to go back to our fundamentals and work on those. We were blown off the ball a lot. We are playing high. Mostly stuff you see at the beginning of the year. Not executing our assignments, and had a few penalties that we shouldn’t make.”

The Bearcats were first on the board with a 27-yard field goal from junior Blake Green.

Bainbridge was leading 3-0 when the Vikings scored and completed a 2-point conversion late in the first quarter.

Lowndes made the score 11-3 after hitting a 24-yard field goal in the second quarter, and took advantage of a dropped pass by Zyon McGee late in the second quarter, making the score 19-3 with 40 seconds left in the half.

The Vikings’ final score came in the third quarter to make the score 26-3.

Bainbridge capitalized on a Lowndes fumble with just over two minutes left in the third quarter and sent Pierce 44 yards to the end zone.

“We came out and played fairly well in the first quarter, except execution-wise,” Littleton said. “We played hard up front, but we kind of gave out of gas a little bit, so we are going to have to find some depth on the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.”

The Bearcats will be back next Friday, Aug. 12, for a fan day at 6 p.m. at Centennial Field.