LOUISVILLE — There was no secret to the game plan West Point High School football coach Chris Chambless had for his team’s season opener against Louisville on Friday night.
“We played West Point football,” Chambless said, referring to the pounding running game that saw West Point rush for 412 yards in a 46-7 victory. “That’s our forte’, and that’s what we do. We just don’t want to get away from it.
“We have got our kids brainwashed into it, and it’s what they like to do. It’s something we like to do and we work hard at it.”
That work paid off in a rousing victory for the Class 5A Green Wave against the Class 4A Wildcats.
After Louisville used a 38-yard halfback pass from Keon Coleman to Devon Lee to tie the game at 7 with 2 minutes, 52 seconds left in the first quarter, West Point went back to doing what it does best. The next possession saw the Green Wave rip off first downs on four consecutive plays thanks to runs of 33, 15, 13, and 16 yards before sophomore quarterback Marcus Murphy closed the drive with a 3-yard touchdown run to give his team the lead for good, 14-7, with 1:17 left in the first quarter.
“They went right down the field on us,” Louisville coach M.C. Miller said. “We just couldn’t make any tackles. We had that problem all night. We knew we were hurting for defensive linemen, and it showed tonight. That was a good offensive line out there.”
Murphy had 11 carries for 153 yards on a night that saw eight West Point players carry the ball at least twice.
“It lifted our team,” Murphy said of the five-play, 80-yard scoring drive. “It helped us keep up our tempo.”
Early on, it looked like Louisville was going to slow down West Point’s running attack, as the Green Wave managed only 9 rushing yards on their first five attempts and lost 9 yards on a bad snap on a punt attempt.
But West Point still found a way to score. On third-and-9 on his team’s first possession, Murphy hit a wide open DMarrio Edwards deep down the middle of the field for a 79-yard touchdown with 8:27 to play in the first quarter. Jose Garcia connected on the first of his four extra points to make it 7-0.
Later in the first quarter, Louisville took advantage of West Point’s bad snap on a punt to score its touchdown. At the Green Wave 38-yard line, Coleman took a pitch and looked to be heading around the right end, but he stood up and hit Lee — who made a good shin-high catch on the run — for the touchdown. Corey McCullough’s extra point tied the game at 7.
But West Point regained the momentum with the aforementioned five-play scoring drive on its next possession to take a 14-7 lead after one quarter.
The Green Wave opened the second quarter with Murphy breaking a run up the middle for a 57-yard touchdown. On Louisville’s next possession, West Point’s Trey Brownlee intercepted a pass by quarterback Brody Burchfield and returned in 38 yards to make it 26-7 with 10:04 left in the half.
“That really picked up the defense and the offense,” Murphy said of Brownlee’s play. “That really got us going.”
The Green Wave closed the first half with a 20-yard touchdown run by Murphy to make it 32-7 at halftime. West Point’s second-half touchdowns came in the third quarter, as Andre Lane scored on a 10-yard run and Trevino Harris had a 1-yard touchdown run.
West point ran the ball 50 times for 412 yards, and had 493 yards of total offense. Murphy also was 2 of 4 for 81 yards.
Both teams played fairly clean as far as turnovers and penalties. West Point intercepted two passes, while Louisville recovered one fumble. Louisville had three penalties for 35 yards and West Point had three for 24 yards. That was something Chambless liked.
“I’ve very pleased with the penalties,” Chambless said. “We really cut down on the mental errors. I can deal with the physical mistakes, but the mental errors are harder.”
Burchfield was 8 of 24 for 104 yards for Louisville, while Demarcus Fair had five catches for 62 yards and Chris Blair three catches for 42 yards. Kendrick Holmes led Louisville with 28 rushing yards on three carries.
Louisville had 1 rushing yard on 16 attempts in the first half. West Point surrendered only 4 rushing yards until Louisville picked up 64 yards on three carries on its last possession.
West Point will play host to Starkville (1-1) next week, while Louisville will play at Kemper County.
“It is what it is,” Chambless said of facing Starkville. “It’s going to be a big rivalry game. We are going to go back to work (today) and humble ourselves and see what happens.”
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