A beautiful sunset, a full moon and a new scoreboard just couldn’t give the Thompson Warriors enough good karma as they fell to Austin 30-18 in their home opener Friday night.

Methodically, the Thompson offense put together a combination of runs and passes to march the ball 68 yards for the first score of the game. The drive was capped by a 9-yard touchdown run by Kevin Woody.

Austin scored on its first drive as well, but thanks to the strong play of the Thompson defense, the Black Bears were held to a field goal. At the end of the first quarter Austin attempted its second field goal of the night, a 45-yarder, which failed.

The second quarter is one Thompson head coach Brian Maner would like to forget.

“Austin played a great second quarter, and we just didn’t execute,” Maner said.

That non-execution cost the Warriors dearly. Austin quarterback Ethan Netherton passed for two touchdowns and rushed for another as the Black Bears reeled off 20 unanswered points to take a 23-7 lead into the locker room.

It looked as if the second half would be a continuation of the second quarter as the Black Bears drove down the field and scored on a 14-yard run, which turned out to be their last score of the game. Austin finished the night with 583 total yards of offense. Netherton completed 22-of-32 passes for 361 yards and two touchdowns.

Thompson drove 49 yards and scored on a 6-yard pass from David Bria to Deshaunta Bivens. Bria completed 22-of-41 passes for 176 yards and one touchdown.

The Thompson defense stepped things up after this score and made some big plays.

On Austin’s next possession, K-Sun Manzano made a tackle on the Austin running back in the endzone for the safety to get things going for the Warriors. Later, an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone gave the Warriors another safety and their final points of the game.

Twice in the fourth quarter the Warriors drove to the red zone and then watched their drive die inside the 10-yard line. The desperation passes fell short on fourth down each time.

“We just didn’t cash in on the hard work that the defense gave us in the second half,” Maner said. “We have got to make the play and finish the drive.”

The Warriors will now regroup as they return to Class 6A, Region 6 play next week when Spain Park comes to town.