South Medford's Mike Duclos makes a catch for a first down against South Salem at Spiegelberg Stadium in Medford Friday.

South Medford didn’t have much room for error facing No. 9-ranked South Salem on Friday night, and the Saxons made them pay for just about every one made during the South/Central Football Conference matchup of unbeatens at Spiegelberg Stadium.

From breakdowns on pass coverage to a pair of intercepted passes in the first half and a host of missed chances on big-play opportunities, South Medford simply found itself out of sync and out of luck in a 45-21 setback.

“We were pretty sloppy tonight,” said Panthers junior running back/linebacker Bridger Foss. “We just couldn’t keep things under control.”

Conversely, South Salem seemed in complete control as it built a 14-0 lead through one quarter of play and only briefly saw its lead dip below double digits thereafter in snapping a five-game losing streak to South Medford (3-1, 1-1 SCFC).

“We knew they were a good football team,” said Panthers head coach Bill Singler. “They’re physical — those two defensive ends (Divine Ibe and Hatimu Letisi) are the real deal — and they’ve got good skill. They spread you out and create a lot of mismatches and we’re kind of young in that department so they exposed us. We still kind of hung within that 10-point deal for a long time and within striking distance, but we kept shooting ourselves in the foot, which ultimately got us in the end.”

South Medford’s stable of running backs were largely corralled by the Saxons (4-0, 2-0), who held the Panthers to a season-low 250 yards rushing on 52 attempts. That number might have been even lower but Foss was able to burst through the middle for a 58-yard touchdown run only 30 seconds into the fourth quarter to make it 31-21 — two plays after Ryder Scheid had broken loose on a 24-yard scamper.

A week after running for 436 yards as a team — the Panthers entered Friday averaging 323 yards on the ground and 443 overall — Foss finished with 12 carries for 93 yards and Scheid had 13 carries for 63 yards.

More often than not, South Salem put up a wall in the trenches to keep yardage at a minimum and pursued well to anything on the edge.

“They had pretty good ends and we just weren’t very good up front today,” said Foss, “but I’m sure we’ll work on it for next week. Coming back from this loss is going to be big. I think we can really get a lot better from this loss.”

The highlight of hope may have been when Foss closed the gap with his big TD run.

“There was open space and I just hauled ass as fast as I could through the hole,” the 5-foot-9, 180-pounder said afterwards of his energizing effort.

The Panthers still had 11 ½ minutes to move even closer but the pendulum swung right back in the Saxons’ favor on the ensuing series when quarterback Athan Palmateer pulled the ball down and broke down the sideline with no backside defensive presence for a 64-yard gain to immediately put his team in scoring position.

Shortly thereafter, Tristan Geer scored on a 3-yard run to answer in about a minute’s time.

The Panthers then had a potential 36-yard TD pass from Colby Schwartz to Mike Duclos negated by penalty, fumbled the ball away on their next possession to give the Saxons a short porch for an 8-yard TD run by Noah Scharer and then fumbled again to allow South Salem to run out the clock.

“It was just one of those games where we weren’t getting the bounces,” said Singler. “We drop a couple picks, we make a big play and then for some reason we get a penalty … there was a lot of different stuff that happened tonight, but I think the better team won tonight, obviously.”

Schwartz had a pair of 1-yard TD runs for South Medford, narrowing deficits to 14-7 in the second quarter and 24-14 in the third after South Salem muffed the opening kickoff to the second half.

The senior QB only had to throw four times in last week’s romp at McNary but the Panthers knew that wouldn’t be the case again facing a Saxons squad that was averaging nearly 45 points per game.

Schwartz was able to connect with Duclos for a few key completions as well as a 29-yard reception by Scheid that set up South Medford’s first score, but he was intercepted twice by Jacob Nemecek — the latter on an errant screen play that resulted in a 48-yard pick-six to make it 21-7.

After connecting on deep passes to Ajani Ingram against Del Norte in Week 2, the pair couldn’t create the same chemistry as Ingram got behind the defense a few times but to no avail. Schwartz finished 5-for-16 passing for 76 yards.

“We’ve got to find ways to throw the ball,” said Singler. “I thought we did it a couple times tonight, but we’re not a spectacular throwing team. We’re still evolving in that department. We showed some flashes at different times tonight but it’s just an area we’ve got to keep working on because people are going to load the box on us.”

Palmateer sent scoring strikes to Eli Johnson (42 yards) and Esteban Mendez (37 yards) in the first quarter on coverage lapses, and Johnson pulled in another 14-yard fade pass to the edge of the end zone to push South Salem’s lead to 31-14 with 7:50 to go in the third quarter.

On that same drive capped by Johnson’s second TD, Scheid had a near interception just barely elude his grasp that wound up in the arms of Parker Williams for a 41-yard gain to the South Medford 30-yard line.

Palmateer completed 10 of 27 passes for 195 yards. The senior was especially effective when the Panthers’ defensive rush would break containment and that allowed for him to scramble for 125 yards on eight carries for a running game that netted 204 yards on 20 carries.

South Salem 14 10 7 14 — 45

South Medford 0 7 7 7 — 21

SS — Johnson 42 pass from Palmateer (Segura-Coley kick)

SS — Mendez 37 pass from Palmateer (Segura-Coley kick)

SM — Schwartz 1 run (Thonstad kick)

SS — Nemecek 48 interception return (Segura-Coley kick)

SS — FG Segura-Coley 40

SM — Schwartz 1 run (Thonstad kick)

SS — Johnson 14 pass from Palmateer (Segura-Coley kick)

SM — Foss 58 run (Thonstad kick)

SS — Geer 3 run (Segura-Coley kick)

SS — Scharer 8 run (Segura-Coley kick)