STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. - Kennett picked up its third loss of the season in a wet conditioned road assignment.

Despite their improvement on turnovers and mistakes, the Dragons of Ste. Genevieve spoiled Kennett’s hope for a week three victory. With this loss, the Indians are now 0-3.

The last time Kennett started a season 0-3 was over a decade ago in 2012.

The team lacked on-the-field leadership from seniors Landon Decker and Caleb Duncan. Both upperclassman captains were sidelined on Friday’s match with injuries suffered from week two’s matchup against Paragould.

However, Junior Ty Jones was able to step up as quarterback for the Indians. Behind his offensive directing, Kennett improved their turnover rate from five against Paragould to only one at Ste. Genevieve.

Jones threw for 52 yards on six completed passes. This included a 20 yard pass to put Kennett into the red zone against Ste. Genevieve. This sparked a run to help push the Indians on the one yard mark in front of the goal.

From there, sophomore Nicholas Fonda rushed into the endzone to give Kennett their first and only touchdown of the game. As the lone scorer for the Indians, Fonda covered 119 rushing yards against Ste. Genevieve on 20 attempts resulting in one touchdown. This was statistically his best game of the season so far after only averaging 44.5 yards in the first two weeks and 0 appearances in the endzone.

Sacory Ray had the second most gain of yards for Kennett. He was able to cover 35 yards on kick returns.

Junior Karson Manley and sophomore Zayne Franklin recorded the most receiving yards. Manley had 20 while Franklin recorded 13.

At the completion of week three, Franklin was ranked 11th in the SEMO Conference with 69 receiving yards. He is averaging 34.5 yards per game while his highest was 37 against Paragould. This puts him 4th in the SEMO Central Conference Division.

Austin Gattis still leads the team defensively with 23 tackles this season and a fumble recovery. Gattis has the fourth most tackles in the conference so far.

Even though there were less mistakes and turnover, the Dragons defense still halted Kennett offensive efforts. The Indians were only able to accomplish one third down conversion out of eight.

Ste. Genevieve retained a 20 point advantage and achieved their second win of the season. With this win, the Dragons are now ranked third in the MSHSAA Class 3 District 1 assignment.

Kennett rose in ranking to 6th as the late game touchdown by Fonda helped the team pass Herculaneum on points.

The next game for Kennett will be another northward traveling match against Kelly. This will be the teams second SEMO Conference game of the season. Kelly sits right about Kennett in the SEMO Central standings. The Hawks have a one game advantage over Kennett with a 1-2 record. They will look to prevent a three game losing streak with a win over Kennett in week four. On the other side, Kennett will search for their first victory of the season.

Kennett will play at Kelly on Friday, Sep. 20 at 7 p.m for their second of a three game road trip.

Next Friday, Sep. 27, the Indians will travel to East Prairie.