LUMBERTON - Nederland showed no ill-effects from last Thursday's tough loss to Ozen as the Bulldogs dominated from the opening kickoff in Tuesday night's 41-0 shutout of Lumberton at Raider Stadium.

Like everyone else in District 20-4A, the Bulldogs were playing their second game in five days. With just one full day of practice, Larry Neumann's squad looked extremely fresh and focused on both sides of the ball.

“This district is like an experiment,” Neumann said after the game. “I never know how the experiment is going to end up until we play. The priorities at Nederland were to have fresh legs and not put too much on the kids. It wouldn't have mattered who we were playing, we weren't going to do much different than we did against Ozen.

“It worked, I guess, because we looked pretty fresh and we looked in the game mentally and physically. Now we have almost two weeks off before we close out the season at Little Cypress-Mauriceville. Believe it or not, we are going to take a couple of afternoons off and start really preparing for LCM on Monday.”

In the post-Hurricane Rita district restructuring, Neumann and his staff tried to come up with a formula that would give his team the best chance to be successful.

“I think you can over cook it and I think you can under cook it. You just keep messing with the recipe and hope it turns out good,” Neumann said in reference to getting his team ready to play in the current district format.

Nederland, who improved to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in District 20-4A play, set the tone early. The Bulldog defense forced a quick three-and-out on Lumberton's first possession. The offense followed with a 10-play drive that covered 63 yards.

Tailback Micah Mosley and fullback Chris Gutierrez carried the load on the drive. Mosley carried five times for 26 yards and Gutierrez had three totes for 25 yards. Gutierrez capped the drive with a 12-yard touchdown run to put Nederland up 7-0.

“I think our offensive line took control early in the ball game,” Neumann said. “Behind the running of Mosley and Gutierrez, we did sustain some ground game, which was good to see. You're going to have to run the football to be effective offensively.”

Lumberton (0-7, 0-3) moved the ball some on its next possession, but the drive stalled and the Raiders were forced to punt. Wade Abercrombie hit a booming 50-yard punt that Ryan Butler retreated on and fielded at his own 10. Butler raced through Lumberton's punt coverage, broke free at the 40 and raced 90 yards for a touchdown to make the score 14-0.

Starting nose tackle Ron Mohica, who turned in another solid game on defense, got into the action on offense on the Bulldogs third scoring drive. A 55-yard pass from Alex Moshier to Butler gave Nederland a first down at the Raiders 12.

Mosley, who led all rushers with 107 yards on 22 carries, gained 11 yards on two successive totes to give Nederland first-and-goal at the 1. Mohica, who has been playing fullback during the season in goal line situations, was given the ball and scored his first career touchdown on a 1-yard run.

Nederland closed out the scoring with another score with five seconds left in the first half. Gutierrez scored on a 16-yard run to cap an eight-play drive to give the Bulldogs a 27-0 halftime lead.

It was more of the same in the second half. Nederland put together a 12-play scoring drive midway through the third quarter. Moshier hit Mosley for a 16-yard screen pass to convert a key third-and-10. Mosley capped the drive with a 1-yard TD run.

Butler's 48-yard punt return gave Nederland good field position at the Lumberton 30 on its next possession. Giving the reserves a chance to play, Eric Rodriguez closed out the scoring with a 4-yard touchdown run to make the score 41-0. He finished the game with 58 yards on seven carries.

The Bulldogs amassed 379 yards of total offense, 271 coming on the ground. Moshier was 7-of-14 for 108 yards passing. The defense limited the Raiders to just 195 yards of total offense, 104 rushing and 91 passing.

“I think it all goes there too with the freshness. A lot of those guys are two-way starters, especially in the secondary,” said Neumann on his defense posting a shutout. “Our linebacking corps played better tonight, Jarvis Benton and Travis Dabel really stepped up. Mohica had another outstanding game.

“We've been tinkering with giving him (Mohica) the ball in practice and got the opportunity to use tonight. He was fired up and will probably want to run everything now.”

Neumann changed his approach with the team when everybody returned from Hurricane Rita.

“I told the kids once we got back going again that we are going to work hard and play hard, but we're also going to have fun,” said Neumann. “The Hurricane has cheated us and we're going to have fun. We're not going to go back and try to get everybody back in shape and grind like you might be doing in a regular format.

“We really lightened up in our approach with our players and how we do everything. The kids are having a ball and are playing some pretty good football.”