Things started going wrong for Dallas County from the opening kickoff Friday against Calera and didn’t get any better the rest of the night.

The Hornets tried an onside kick to start the game and had numerous chances to recover it, but couldn’t do so. It was a sign of things to come for Dallas County as the Hornets fell to Calera 31-7.

“We had our opportunities but it was almost like when the ball rolled out of bounds [on the onside kick], our entire psyche, our entire air just rolled out of bounds with it,” said Dallas County head coach Marty Smith. “We just didn’t recover from losing the ball and it just snowballed.”

Smith said the Hornets are locked into the playoffs despite the loss, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

He said Dallas County didn’t practice well this past week and that it showed Friday night.

“I tell the kids all the time, you can’t win a ball game on Tuesday and Wednesday but you sure can lose it,” Smith said.

“By not practicing like we should have, and that’s the head coaches fault, we’ve go to get that corrected to win against a good football team.”

Calera led 24-0 at the half and 31-7 at the end of the third quarter.

The loss ended Dallas County’s four game winning streak.

Smith said the Hornets are locked into the No. 4 seed in class 5A, region 4, regardless of how they fare next week against region-leading Demopolis.