Despite giving a strong effort, the Bears were unable to get the consistency they needed in Thursday's home opener, falling to the Northeast Tigers 35-21.
 
"First off, Northeast is a very, very good team," Southwest head coach Les George said. "Just looking back on it, we made a lot of mistakes, we had a lot of penalties and shot ourselves in the foot many times."
 
The Bears (1-1) battled with the Tigers in the first quarter with neither team producing any points.
 
In the second, however, the scoreboard began to light up. Unfortunately, it was the visitors who did so first with an eight-yard rushing touchdown early in the period.
 
Southwest tried to answer but was unable to. The hosts found themselves down by two scores at 14-0 later in the quarter after a 37-yard pass for a touchdown.
 
The Bears continued to battle and were rewarded for their effort with a five-yard rushing score from Chris Hunter with under a minute to go until hafltime and with the Sergio Neyra PAT, Southwest cut the Northeast lead in half at 14-7.
 
Early in the third, the Tigers rallied once again as the Bears trailed by two scores at 21-7 after a 16-yard rushing touchdown.
 
Later in the quarter, Southwest rallied and the Bears were able to pull within striking distance at 21-14 after quarterback Silas Corder slipped into the end zone from five yards out.
 
The Bears looked for the equalizer, but it was the Tigers who kicked-off the scoring in the final frame as a 13-yard touchdown pass made the score 28-14.
 
This time, however, the Bears had an immediate answer as on the ensuing drive, Southwest relied on the leadership of Corder once again and the freshmen led a three-play, 65-yard drive which wrapped when he found Jalen Williams over the middle before the sophomore running back cut through the Tiger defense and into the end zone from 60 yards out making the score 28-21.
 
Southwest was unfortunately unable to keep the momentum as Northeast scored during the next drive on a 37-yard touchdown pass with just under 5:00 to go making the score the eventual final.
 
Corder led the Bears completing 11-of-22 passes for 129 yards, one interception and one touchdown. Williams had 48 carries on 10 attempts and caught two balls for 65 yards and a score. For the second-consecutive week, BJ Mitchell led the team in tackles, this time with 10. Jordan Magee also had a strong performance, finishing with eight.

The Bears will be back int action on Thursday host Pearl River in the South Division opener.