William Chrisman football coach Scorpio Horn was succinct in his initial description of Friday night’s game against Grandview.

“That was ugly,” he said.

The Bears had 12 penalties for 85 yards, dropped a couple of wide-open passes near the end zone, had some blown coverages and missed some blocks.

Sounds like a bad night, right? Well, not completely.

Despite Horn not being pleased with his team’s play, Chrisman still pulled out a 33-20 victory over the host Bulldogs to improve to 4-0 for the first time since 1975.

After the game, Horn had his team immediately board the buses at Grandview High School to head back to Chrisman and go over some things that needed to be addressed.

“We have to get to the point where we know how to be champions,” Horn said. “Our team’s biggest struggle is learning how to win. Now they know how to win a little bit and they understand the expectation and know what comes with winning.

“All week long and tonight we’ve been kind of lethargic. They had to go through some adversity and see what could happen if we can come out not ready to go and not ready to play.”

The Bears weren’t ready for Grandview’s first possession when the Bulldogs scored on a nine-play, 64-yard drive capped by a 34-yard run from Monteze McGregor to make it 6-0.

The defense on that drive and the penalties were Horn’s main concerns following the 13-point win.

“Our Achilles’ heel all year,” Horn said. “Until penalties almost cost you a game, kids don’t understand and coaches don’t understand that one penalty can cost you the game. We have had so many penalty yards on positive plays by just doing crazy stuff that we haven’t done in three weeks. To be able to continue on this journey, we have to eliminate these penalties.”

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