The mood was anything but bright and shiny.

"We understand we have to come out here (tonight) and make a new statement and show everyone we're still the Raiders and we're still the team that everyone fears," said senior running back James Wade.

Some of those fears were allayed last week when the Purple Raiders suffered their first regular-season loss since 1998 -- a 14-12 shocker to upstart Decatur Eisenhower which snapped an amazing 38-game streak.

Nobody likes losing. For the defending Class 6A state-runner-ups, it's intolerable.

"We've got a lot to prove," said senior fullback/linebacker Justin Harrison. "We have to prove to ourselves, our coaches and our community we're still Bloomington. We win. We made a mistake and underestimated a team. It's not the best thing, but it happened.

"I think we learned a lot. A lot of us were living off of other people's work. We thought we were unbeatable. Last week proved nobody is scared of us. Everybody wants to tee off on us and everybody is going to come to play against us. If we're not on top of our game we can be beat."

Wade, Harrison and fellow senior co-captains Ryan Esch and Brandon Hughes took the loss harder than anyone.

"As a team, we felt the streak was part of our tradition," said Esch, a tight end/defensive end. "As long as we've been here the streak has been going on, and as senior captains we feel responsible for letting the team down and breaking tradition."

BHS coach Rigo Schmelzer isn't holding any individual responsible. And with his 4-1 team still poised to make its 17th straight playoff appearance, he isn't blowing the loss out of proportion.

"Right now it's a game which we lost, and a game we shouldn't have lost," Schmelzer said. "Like anything else, as the head of an organization I'll 'fess up and take responsibility. I didn't have the kids prepared, and for whatever reason we came out flat.

"There are a lot of things you can do as far as pointing fingers, but the reality as a squad is we just have to play better. It was a wake-up call for us, and that becomes something the kids have to recognize. We have to be scrappy out there, show heart, fly around. We have to stay focused and treat every team with respect. Fear nobody, but get out there and get after them."

Eisenhower did most of the getting after it last week, and the Panthers reaped the rewards. The Raiders hurt themselves by losing four fumbles and allowing Eisenhower to stage a game-winning touchdown drive in the fourth quarter.

"The loss last week really set us back," said Hughes, a wide receiver/cornerback. "We should have executed a lot better. It was a helpless feeling. We all wanted to make the individual play, but they didn't allow us to do that. We couldn't make any individual plays, and we couldn't make a play as a team.

"The plays we did make got called back because of penalties. We dropped balls, we fumbled balls, we didn't make the reads. You name it, it all went wrong. Yeah, they won but we beat ourselves. Now we know how everybody else feels."

According to Harrison, the Raiders should have seen it coming. The University of Illinois recruit also found a silver lining in the defeat.

"We gained a lot this week as a team and as individuals," Harrison said. "We had been joking around, and we overlooked it. Every week, every day, practice had been getting worse and worse. After that loss everybody rethought what they had been doing and they knew we had to step it up.

"This week we had probably the best practices we've had all year. Everybody was focused. We stopped joking around. We knew we had to get serious."

Said Wade: "The mood of the team is a lot different now. Because of the streak we came out with the attitude all we had to do was show up and we had a guaranteed win. It surprised us and knocked us back knowing a team would pressure us like (Eisenhower) did.

"They came out and played a really good game, and we didn't step up. Everyone was surprised, and everyone was hurt by it. It caught us off guard."

If Danville (2-3) catches the Raiders napping again, it will be the second major upset in as many weeks for BHS.

"We want a little payback this week," Esch said.

Contact Douglas Hamm at dhamm@pantagraph.com