The Santa Clara Bruins football team lost by a slim margin to the Saratoga Falcons Friday night, when their first league game ended 35-41.

A series of back-to-back touchdowns by both sides continued through most of the game, and by the end of the third quarter the Bruins were winning 28-27. However, two straight touchdowns by the Falcons during the final quarter quelled the excitement on the home side.

Santa Clara cut down Saratoga’s lead to six points with a touchdown, but that did not prove enough, and the game ended with the Falcons still ahead.

Bruins wide receiver Darius Jones-Dorsey, the architect of the first touchdown, was disappointed at the end of the match. “We need to finish,” he said. “We took a tough loss tonight.”

Saratoga Falcons coach Tim Lugo, on the other hand, was satisfied with the result. “Winning games is hard,” he said. “We’re in a good football league and our games are really competitive.”

Despite the loss, the Bruins scored 15 more points than in their match against Leland High School last week.

“There’s no question we did better than last game,” Bruins coach Hank Roberts said. “But we still can’t handle adversity very well; we’ve got to get better at handling that.”

With this win by Saratoga, their record is now 2-2, while SCHS’s is 1-3.

Lugo noted the quality of the Bruins’ gameplay. “They played a really good game tonight; they’re a really talented team and they’re only going to get better,” he said.