Mexico knew it would be more of a battle Friday.

Defensive battle, in fact.

The Bulldogs lost 14-6 Friday at district foe Southern Boone as Eagles quarterback AJ Evans threw two touchdown passes. Andrew Runge scored Mexico’s lone touchdown on a 29-yard run in the fourth quarter, making it 7-6 at one point.

Mexico finished with 219 rushing yards, losing one fumble out of four that hit the ground. Runge led the Bulldogs with 125 yards on 23 carries followed by Anthony Shivers’ 77 yards on 12 carries.

Head coach Steve Haag said while Mexico’s offense had a much better day in last season’s 32-7 win, these were different teams now as the Bulldogs are breaking in younger players and Southern Boone returned much experience from last year.

“I thought, going in, we’re probably pretty comparable,” Haag said. “Last year, we might have had a couple more athletes on the field. Too little, too late for our side, but there may be a chance we get to face them again down the road in districts.”

Haag said he was concerned about Evans and his ability to throw, which burned the Bulldogs twice for scores on 12-for-19 passing and 194 yards. Before halftime, Evans scrambled to find Tristan McKee 30 yards for the touchdown and then added another score to Chase Morris – who set the school single-game receiving yard record last week at 313 yards – on a slant route for 51 yards in the fourth quarter out of his total 87 yards on five catches.

Evans wasn’t the only concern for Mexico, though, as an offensive strategy that hurt the team last week reared its head this week.

“Their misdirection worried me a little bit just because we didn’t handle that misdirection run game last week against Centralia,” Haag said. “We want to be successful at both (defending the run and pass), and I thought we were.”

Haag said Mexico’s linebackers tried to do too much but were better this week in the sense of adhering to their assignments and not forcing the defense out of position.

The Bulldogs had difficulty making a dent offensively as its option offense struggled against Southern Boone’s stacked-box defensive strategy.

“We did well on some of it, but some of the stuff I thought we could’ve run better,” Haag said. “There were a lot of people close to the line of scrimmage, which can frustrate you a little bit as an offense.”

Even though Mexico has had a polar opposite compared to its 2-0 start last year, Haag said the situation isn’t dire as the team’s young players just need more snaps.

“We could easily be 2-0,” Haag said. “It’s just getting these guys snaps. The improvement from Game 1 to Game 2 was huge. In Missouri football, you can work for Week 10 because Week 10 is when it all starts. We want to get better each week. Of course, you want to win football games, but you’ve got to do things right.”

Mexico (1-1) plays Friday at Odessa (2-0), who defeated Clinton 49-20 in Week 2.