MERIDIAN — The Starkville High School football team ran off the field with heads hung down.
The Yellow Jackets experienced something Friday night that they experienced once last season: a loss. The only loss last season came in double overtime in the opener against Noxubee County. They rattled off 14-straight to win the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 6A State championship.
Beginning this season with three-straight wins, it looked like the Jackets picked up where they left off. But several miscues on both sides of the ball snapped a 17-game winning streak for No. 2 Starkville as it fell 20-10 to No. 10 Meridian High at Ray Stadium.
“When you play good teams you can’t make mistakes,” Starkville football coach Ricky Woods said. “This is a good team. I think we’re very similar. We just made some mistakes that shouldn’t have happened when they happened. We had our chances and just didn’t come through.”
Starkville beat Noxubee County (24-21), Oxford (28-16) and West Point (28-6) to open the season.
After the hot start, the Yellow Jackets were off last week and used the week to heal up and go over a few things in practice. But it wasn’t a week filled with hard practices. That was reserved for this week.
Starkville senior linebacker Willie Gay, who is committed to Ole Miss, said the effort in practice wasn’t there and that carried over to the game.
“It started at practice with the seniors from playing around and not fixing the small things,” Gay said. “That’s what happened (Friday). We’ve just got to go back next week and work hard.
“We could have practiced a lot better. Coach preached to us all week, ‘If you keep practicing like this, somebody’s going to beat you,’ and it just so happened.”
Gay said transitioning back into a game week on Monday was tough and it got the practice week off to a bad start. Gay did his part with an interception in the first quarter.
Even with all the mistakes, the Jackets had a chance to win. Trailing 14-10 early in the fourth quarter, Starkville faced a first-and-goal from the 3 yard line. But senior center Connor Reinike snapped the ball over sophomore quarterback Malik Brown’s head. Brown scrambled after the ball, but Meridian’s D’Angelo Anderson recovered it.
Woods felt like if his team scored there, they had a good chance of winning. He said Reinike just messed up the snap, something that happens when you play out of a shotgun.
Gay said it was uncharacteristic of Reinike.
“We never really see that from Connor, ever,” Gay said. “That’s why he’s our long snapper. He’s real reliable with the football when he’s snapping.”
The Wildcats (4-1) scored on the ensuing series to take a 10-point lead midway through the fourth quarter. Quarterback Eddie Brown floated a pass up and wide receiver Mack Martin went up and out jumped the defensive back. He came down with it, broke a tackle and ran in for the 37-yard touchdown.
Rodrigues Clark, who had 162 yards rushing on 28 carries, scored a 5-yard touchdown to give the Jackets a 7-0 lead with 31 seconds remaining in the first half. Starkville then tried to keep the ball away from Meridian’s big playmaker Eli Stringfellow. The Jackets tried a short kick down the sideline, but Stringfellow was there. He returned it 48 yards and the Wildcats took over at the Jacket 27 yard line with 27 seconds left.
The Starkville defense held tough and forced a third-and-10 at the 11 yard line. Meridian quarterback Tevarrius Adams looked to pass, but had nobody open. He rolled to his left, tucked the ball and headed for the pylon. He dove, outstretching the ball with his body parallel to the ground to score an 11-yard touchdown to tie the game at 7.
Gay said they sent two blitzers off the end, but they couldn’t get to Adams.
“I really don’t know what happened. He found a hole somewhere and got up in there,” Gay said.
The Jackets took a 10-7 lead on a 27-yard Wesley Albritton field goal with 2:10 left in the third quarter.
On the ensuing kickoff, the Jackets kicked it short again and Stringfellow returned it to the Jacket 48 yard line. The Wildcats converted a third and fourth down to keep the drive alive. The Wildcats took a 14-10 lead on an 11-yard touchdown from Jaquaris Dean to cap off the drive.
“They’re so dangerous and we didn’t want to get a lot of height on it and we never did. We were going to try to pin them inside the 25 and we never did,” said Woods of the short kickoffs.
The Jackets had four fumbles and lost three and backup quarterback Ben Owens threw an interception in the fourth quarter. Anderson had three fumble recoveries and the interception for Meridian.
Malik Brown left in the fourth quarter with a sprained knee, but Woods said he expects him to play this week as Starkville plays host to Callaway 7 p.m. this Friday to open Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 6A, Region 2 play.
Gay expects this week’s practice to be more serious and for the team to be more focused as they prepare.
Although he wants to win every game, Woods said having a game like this before district play is not always a bad thing.
“We learned a lot from it,” Woods said. “You get better by playing good people and that’s why we load the front end of our schedule.
“You get better, you watch film and you don’t need to make the same mistake twice.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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