MACON — While talking to his team Monday at practice, Noxubee County High School football coach Tyrone Shorter brought up South Panola.
With 11 state championships, South Panola is considered one of the best high school football programs in the state of Mississippi.
But South Panola didn’t win a title last year.
In fact, fourth-seeded Madison Central eliminated top-seeded South Panola in the first round of the 2015 Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 6A playoffs.
Shorter highlighted South Panola’s loss because his team again earned a No. 1 seed after winning Class 4A, Region 4, and was set to play host to Gentry High. Shorter didn’t want the Tigers to overlook a team with only one win and think about the second round.
After a slow start, Noxubee County took care of business in a 47-0 victory Friday night in the first round of the playoffs.
“We just had to come out and play,” Shorter said. “I told them to not look at any record because this is the playoffs. Anybody can get hot in the playoffs and anybody can get beat. I didn’t want them to get caught up on the record. We just wanted to come out and send a message.”
Noxubee County (8-4) will play host to Senatobia, which beat Itawamba Agricultural 34-15, at 7 p.m. Friday in the second round of the playoffs.
Noxubee County sophomore wide receiver Kyziah Pruitt said the players took Shorter’s message to heart in practice.
“We had the mood of, even though it’s a one-win team, that we can’t take anybody lightly,” Pruitt said. “Anybody can be beat in the playoffs, so we just had to bring our all in practice this week. We knew it was the same if we were playing somebody like Lafayette or Starkville. We had the same attack mentality.”
Pruitt caught a 33-yard touchdown pass from Maliek Stallings on the first play in the second half to make it 37-0. The Tigers added a 10-yard Jakerrius Oliver touchdown and a 22-yard Samuel Lowery field goal in the quarter to force a running clock.
The Rams (1-10) began the game with a 14-play, 54-yard drive. But facing fourth-and-19 at the Tigers’ 36-yard line, the Rams elected to punt.
Oliver scored a 28-yard touchdown on the ensuing drive to set the rout in motion.
Shorter said he was disappointed in the slow start for the defense, but it recovered a fumble, forced a safety, and Joshua Little had an interception.
“I didn’t want this to be a trap game where we come out sluggish and play terrible and mess around and lose,” Shorter said. “We had a good week of practice. We’re not looking ahead.”
Pruitt, who had two catches for 47 yards, caught a 14-yard touchdown pass from Armoni Clark with 1 minute, 9 seconds remaining in the first half to give the Tigers a 30-0 halftime lead.
Pruitt said the Tigers played “all right,” but wants to see improvement.
“We need to work on consistency,” Pruitt said. “We’ve got to go 100 percent every snap because we take too many plays off. It’s a lack of maturity. We’ve got to mature ourselves more, and it’s going to come.”
Pruitt expects the same intensity the Tigers showed last week in practice to be present this week.
Shorter said getting his kids to play more consistently starts with him and his coaching staff.
“We have to continue to coach them up and continue to get on them when we see guys slacking off,” Shorter said. “You try to get into the kids’ head and tell them that the play you take off might cause us to lose the ballgame.”
Noxubee County has won the last two Class 4A State championships. Shorter knows the Tigers are going to get everybody’s best in the playoffs, which is why he wants his players to stay in the moment.
“I think this team is mature enough,” Shorter said. “These seniors and these juniors have been a part of the last two championship teams, and they know what’s at stake. I believe in this team, and I believe they’re going to come out and play as hard they can play.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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