TUPELO — The Columbus High School football team entered Friday night’s Class 6A, Region 1 game against Tupelo with a plan.
The plan worked to perfection.
Behind another smothering effort from its defense and another 200-yard rushing night from Kylin Hill, Columbus routed Tupelo 33-9 to move to 4-2 and 2-0 in region play.
“It was all about finishing,” Columbus junior quarterback C.J. Gholar said. “Tonight, we saw things through and got the end result we wanted.”
Columbus had five scoring drives of 65 yards or more. The Falcons overcame two first-quarter turnovers to build a 13-3 halftime lead. Columbus removed all doubt with a dominating second-half performance.
Hill topped 200 yards for a second-straight week, as he rushed 26 times for 209 yards and two touchdowns. Gholar ran 15 times for 111 yards and three scores. Columbus was one bad snap on a third-down play away from rushing for more than 400 yards.
Columbus rushed for 381 yards and had 454 yards of offense. The Falcons did all this with their other top running, Kendre Conner sidelined by an ankle injury for a second-straight game.
“Just wait till we get Kendre back,” Hill said. “We will really be something else then.”
n Heritage Academy 30, West Lowndes 20: At Columbus, Michael Ledbetter ran for a score and caught a touchdown pass from Dylan Barker to lead the Patriots (3-4) to their third-straight victory against the Panthers in the Lowndes County Mississippi High School Activities Association-Mississippi Association of Independent Schools matchup.
Barker had a 2-yard touchdown run, and Toby Young had a 10-yard touchdown run that helped Heritage Academy end a three-game losing streak. The victory also snapped West Lowndes’ four-game winning streak.
Kemario Evans had touchdown runs of 10 and 7 yards for West Lowndes (4-3), which led 14-9 late in the third quarter following a 21-yard return for a touchdown by Tedarrious Barr, who was in the right place at the right time to catch a fumbled exchange between Dontae Gray and Zach Oswalt.
Gray paced Heritage Academy with 15 carries for 130 yards.
For more on these games and the rest of the local prep football coverage, see Sunday’s print edition of The Dispatch. You also can check back Sunday morning at www.cdispatch.com.
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