ISLAMORADA -- The Island Christian School Eagles opened their six-man football season on Saturday afternoon at home against the Cape Coral Crusaders and left the field with a 40-14 loss pinned to their jerseys. If there was ever a game where the score didn't tell the full story this was one of them.

ICS kicked off and held Cape Coral on downs, which forced the visitors into punt formation. Cape Coral fumbled the snap and the Eagles recovered the ball on the crusaders' 19-yard line. On the Eagles' first play, Jon Cruciger bull-dozed for six yards to the 13-yard line and it looked like this could be a cake walk for the bigger Eagles squad. That momentum was short-lived when Eagles' quarterback Matt Cavanaugh fumbled, giving it right back to the Crusaders.

Cape Coral used this as its jump off point to go on to score 40 unanswered points. The Crusaders' first score came on some defensive miscues by the Eagles and two 25-yard Crusader runs, the second after a horse collar penalty put the ball on the Eagles' 25, to see the visitors go up 6-0.

ICS received the ensuing kickoff and on their first play from scrimmage, the Eagles fumbled the ball to the Crusaders on the 15. On the next play, Cape Coral was on the board again, with a 12-0 lead after only a couple minutes of play.

The next two Eagles possession, resulted in turnovers. ICS gave the Crusaders another easy score follwing a fumble and after a third stright point after attempt the scored was 18-0. The Eagles followed with another turnover and the Crusaders capitalized again on a broken play, going up 25-0 when their first point after attempt succeeded.

The game of errors continued as the Eagles received the kickoff for a touchback and on the first play had the ball snapped over the quarterback's head for another fumble recovery and Crusiders score.

To make sure they gave up points almost every way you can, the Eagles received the Crusader kickoff and on the first play, had another high snap sail over the quarterback's head for a safety, to make it 33-0 in the first half.

In the second half of play, the Eagles put together some offense late to score two touchdowns after the Crusaders added one to make it 40-0. One of the Eagles' scores came on a nice 75-yard run by Daniel Pratt down the left sideline and the Eagles back added the PAT on a short burst to put the Eagles on the board.

The Eagles got into the end zone one more time in the fourth quarter, after two long pass completions to Christian Ledwith and a 10-yard touchdown pass from Cavanagh to Kadian Carter with Cruciger adding the extra point run to make the final score stand at 40-14.

The Eagles, to their credit, didn't quit and coach Ken Haab, his coaching staff, as well as the players said they knew this is one they could have been in, with a chance to win, if not for all the mistakes.

Next Friday, the Eagles fly north to play Oasis in Cape Coral.