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The Rice Raiders played their last game of the 2025 season on their home field last Friday against the Van Vleck Leopards.
The Raiders ended up picking up their first win of the season against the Leopards with a score of 26-22.
The game actually started out rather slow for the Raiders as their offense struggled to find rhythm early in the game. Luckily for them their defense was playing one of their best games of the season and did a great job of keeping the score close in the first half of the game.
Van Vleck was able to find the endzone twice in the first half of the game though, but thankfully for the Raiders they missed an extra point on one touchdown, so they sat with 13 points. The Raiders then eventually found the endzone in the first half as Kor’Dae Johnson led the offense down the field for a score.
This cut Van Vleck’s lead to only one score as they carried a 13-7 score into halftime. Now whatever Raiders Head Coach Brad Dumont said at half- time worked because the Raiders came out swinging to start the second half.
The Raiders’ defense continued to play well in the second half as they limited the Leopards to only nine points. They frustrated the Leopards offense as the Raiders defensive front made life miserable for the quarterback.
This allowed the offense a little more time to find their rhythm and when they found it they started scoring at will. The Raiders offense went from scoring only seven points in the first half to scoring 19 points in the second half to take a 26-22 lead with two minutes to go in the game.
The Raiders defense came up huge as they stopped the Leopards once again late in the game to capture their first win of the season.
Johnson had a huge game for the Raiders as he finished the game with four total touchdowns. He threw two passing touchdowns and ran in two more to help lift the Raiders to their first win of the season.
AJ Jenkins was the Raiders leading receiver Friday night. He caught six passes for 89 yards and a touchdown. Close behind him was Glenn Mills who caught four passes for 72 yards and scored a touchdown as well.
It took the Raiders until the last game of the season to win their first game, and it was a full team effort. Despite the tough season, the Raiders found a way to come together in the final game of the year and put together a gritty win in front of their home crowd.
The Raiders finish the year with a 1-9 record, but that one is a big one as they can use that as a spark to build towards next season.
