BELLBROOK — When it rains, it pours.

The Bellbrook Golden Eagles blew an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter of their homecoming game to the Eaton Eagles, with a final score of 18-17 in favor of the visitors.

“When you have some losses early in the season you lose a little bit of that confidence factor,” Bellbrook head coach Kevin Basinger said. “When you believe that you’re going to pull it out because you did it earlier in the year it’s easier to make those plays at the end of the game. Right now we have a struggle with confidence.”

The Bellbrook defense played well through the first three quarters allowing only one touchdown – which happened to be the second play of the game – but had no answer for Eaton’s Dalton Caudill in the fourth quarter. In the final quarter, Caudill ran for 62 yards and two touchdowns, running the ball 10 out of 11 plays on Eaton’s final scoring drive.

“We talked about gang-tackling all week and running to the football,” Basinger said. “I thought for most of the game we did a great job. I think our defense did enough to win the football game our offense just didn’t get it done.”

After Caudill ran the ball 65 yards on the second play from scrimmage, Bellbrook responded with 17 unanswered points – 14 of which came in the first quarter.

The first score came on a 10 yard run by Zach Guess to capitalize starting off inside Eaton’s 40 yard line following a punt.

And again, the home team took advantage of great field position following an interception by Josh Buckle which he returned 22 yards into Eaton territory. The drive was capped off on a 15 yard touchdown pass from Jay Bucher to Kyle McKinniss.

“It comes down to who wanted it worse,” Basinger said. “They wanted it worse – or at least it looked that way. Unfortunately we didn’t make the plays we needed to make to finish it off. We had the ball with the lead in the fourth quarter and could’ve put the game away. Penalties… this and that… it’s the tale of our season.”

Eaton’s Caudill led his team with a game-high 236 yards on 30 carries and punching in all three touchdowns for the visitors.

Bellbrook was led by Bucher with 170 yards through the air with a touchdown and Guess with 55 rushing yards and a score.

With the loss, Bellbrook falls to 1-6 (1-2).