Buckingham County High School’s varsity football team did not come away with a victory Saturday against host Amelia County High School, but the Knights are showing their coach progress.

“Although we took the loss, I think we’re moving forward, and I think we’re getting closer to where we need to be,” Buckingham Head Coach Josh Wallace said.

He addressed both the positives and the negatives present in the Knights’ 28-14 defeat at the hands of the Raiders.

“They just executed better than us,” Wallace said. “They made key catches when they should’ve, they made some key fourth-down conversions, and they made some really good third-and-long plays. They came up better than us on those critical downs. We should have gotten them off the field.”

One of those downs actually came when Buckingham was on offense.

The Knights took the opening kickoff and drove down the field to within striking distance of Amelia’s goal line. They stalled and ended up going for it on fourth down with two yards to go and were unable to convert.

The Raiders responded with a drive that made the score 6-0.

However, Buckingham took a 7-6 lead in the second quarter after a long drive was capped by a touchdown from senior Daniel Brickhill, who scored on a short quarterback sneak.

Later in the game, Amelia pulled ahead 13-7 and later made it 20-7. The Knights answered right back with two big fourth-quarter plays. Sophomore Walter Edwards scored on a 20- to 30-yard run to help make the score 20-14.

But the Raiders were able to add one more score to help seal their victory.

Buckingham, injury-free during the game, owed its offensive success to a potent run game that generated approximately 280 yards.

Buckingham (0-3) hosts Central Lunenburg High School (0-3) on Friday at 7 p.m.