Turnovers proved costly for the Waterloo football team in a 40-19 loss to Herrin on Friday.

“You look at the score and see 40-19,” Waterloo head coach Dan Rose said. “If you look at it, you realize 24 points came off three of the turnovers. Two of those were very short fields that (Herrin) had to work with. You just can’t allow that to happen and think you will win a football game when it does.”

Overall, Waterloo had four turnovers. A muffed punt, bad snap, fumble and blocked pass helped Herrin, and more importantly running back Gavyn Gosha, keep the ball in the Tigers’ hands.

Gosha carved up the Bulldogs defense for 246 yards and four touchdowns.

“He had a good night. We missed a couple of tackles on him and even with the game he had, if we could have eliminated those turnovers, we had been bottling them up,” Rose said.

“But when you give up the lead on a big play, the wind goes out of your sails. You’ve got a running back of that quality, you know he’s going to get one on you. But you can’t continually give the ball back to your opponent.”

The ‘Dogs played a very strong three quarters, but a big play by Gosha swung the momentum to Herrin.

After trailing 16-12 at halftime, Waterloo took a 19-16 lead with 3:55 left in the third quarter. Max Jennings ran 19 yards for the score. It was Waterloo’s first lead of the game.

Just 20 seconds later, Gosha ran 70 yards for a touchdown and Herrin lead.

“When you look at the film, you feel bad because you don’t like to lose,” Rose said. “But, we really didn’t do that bad. It came down to making the mistakes of those turnovers and giving up that big play. It’s almost cliché to say that, but when you look at it, that’s exactly what happened.”

After the Gosha TD, Herrin went on to add two more rushing scores.

Gosha scored the game’s first TD on a 27-yard scamper in the first quarter. After a 2-point conversion, they led 8-0.

Waterloo answered with a 48-yard pass from quarterback Aaron Laskowski to Hayden Bender.

In the second quarter, Herrin picked up six more points on a 1-yard run by Gavyn Jordan.

Before the end of the half, Jennings ran 19 yards for the score with 8:34 left. Overall, Jennings ran for 53 yards on 15 rushes and had two TDs.

Bender had two catches for 86 yards and a touchdown. Mitchell Gladney led the team in receptions with seven totaling 96 yards.

Laskowski was 13-for-22 passing for 204 yards and TD.

“We had 200 yards passing and we felt there was a lot of good things we could do offensively,” Rose said. “Like I said, when your defense makes a big stop and you end up giving the ball back to them through different turnovers, that really puts pressure on your defense.”

On defense, Austin Stewart led the team with eight total tackles and a sack. Logan Kaufmann also had eight total tackles.

Kory Johnson had six total tackles and a sack. Kory Schaefer had six total tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery.

But everything goes back to the turnover battle that Herrin won, 4-1.

“We just need to get better from week one to week two,” Rose said. “We need to improve some things with our blocking and a couple things on defense. If we don’t turn the ball over four times, we’re having a little bit different of a conversation.”

Waterloo hosts rival Columbia at 7 p.m. Friday.

“They’re good. They’re fast. They’ve got a great offense. Their defense is solid and they’re coming off a big win against Wood River,” Rose said of the Eagles. “So, we’re going to have to play well to compete and have to make sure we don’t give the ball up.”