In high school football action last week, New Hope added another 60-point victory to its resume as West Lowndes picked up its second win on the season. Starkville Academy held off a late rally by Pillow Academy to win its fifth game of the season.
New Hope 62, Saltillo 28
Make that back-to-back games with at least 60 points for the Trojans.
New Hope fell just one point shy of tying the program record for points in a game Friday as it trounced Saltillo on the road behind Jacob Jefferson’s 219 yards rushing and five touchdowns on 16 carries.
The Trojans dominated the game on the ground with quarterback Tyrekus Brooks, last week’s Player of the Week, running for more than 130 yards on 14 carries, and running back Jeremiah Hawkins rushing for 100 yards on 14 totes. It was Hawkins first game since he went out in the team’s season-opening win over Corinth. Head coach Allen Glenn said having all three playing together at the same time allows for a more dynamic offense.
“Now that Jeremiah is back, I feel like we can move those guys around a little bit to give us the best options with whoever we’re playing,” he said.
Glenn also gave credit to his team’s defense, which helped out its offense by forcing and recovering a fumble.
“Right now we’re playing some very good, complementary football. Hopefully being able to break some tendencies we’ve got, moving forward we know that 60-point ball games are not always going to be the case Friday nights, so we’ve just got to continue to work on us and be our best moving forward.”
New Hope ends its nonconference slate with a 3-2 record and opens up Region 1-5A games on Friday by hosting Lafayette.
“They are a wing back-oriented team. It’s a pretty heavy run tendency team, but they’re also very capable of throwing the football, which has given us issues throughout the year,” Glenn said. “So, we’re continuing to work in that area, getting better against the pass and being able to be good against the run too.”
West Lowndes 40, Manatachie 16
Behind a stout defensive and offensive effort, West Lowndes snapped a two-game skid last Friday with a 40-14 victory over Manatachie – its most points scored in a game all season.
On defense the Panthers forced and recovered three fumbles, returning one for a touchdown, and their special teams unit blocked a punt and ran it back for a score. On offense, Kylan Ellis and Jakylen Lucious both ran in two touchdowns, and Kadon Burton carried in one score. The team led 20-0 at halftime and 28-7 heading into the fourth quarter.
“It was good to put the ball in the end zone this week,” Head coach Anthony King said. “The team played hard and has been playing hard all year. This week, we still had a lot of penalties, we didn’t have as many turnovers, but we did have one or two turnovers, so we are trying to cut down on the turnovers and the penalties to sustain drives. Penalties and turnovers are drive killers.”
West Lowndes (2-3) lost control of the football once for a fumble and quarterback Burton threw an interception for the team’s two turnovers, the only two blemishes of its second win of the season.
“We’re just asking guys to play cleaner and play smarter,” King said. “We’re off this week and start district play (next week) and it’s a brand new season.”
West Lowndes hosts Vardaman on Oct. 17 to start Region 1-3A play.
Starkville Academy 16, Pillow Academy 8
After taking a 16-0 lead to the final minute, the Volunteers managed to hold off a late Mustang rally last Friday for a bounce-back victory over a former district foe.
Running back Lawson Mullins ran in both of SA’s touchdowns, one in the first half and the other in the second half, and the team also notched a safety to pull ahead late, but Pillow completed a long touchdown pass and converted the 2-point try to make it a one score game with under a minute left. The Mustangs kicked the onside kick to try and get the ball back, but Owen Couvillion leaped on it to seal the Vols’ fifth win of the season.
“It was a great game. Anytime you can go to Pillow and come out with a win it’s a good day because it’s a tough place to play; they have a lot of tradition,” head coach Chase Nicholson said. “(Pillow is) always a well-coached good football team with tough kids. We left some points out there that felt like if we get those it’s a different game along the way, but we don’t and we continue to have to fight and find a way to win.”
Couvillion and Nicholson talked about the onside kick on Sunday, and he relayed to his coach that he was nervous in the situation, but wasn’t worried because of how many times they’ve practiced it.
“As a coach, that makes you feel good because that’s the reason we practice,” Nicholson said. “We practice those things for those moments, and we got to do that during a game, and as much as we’d love to put it away and not be in that situation, we were able to do an onside kick with the hands team in a game when it mattered. We’ve now done something in a game that other people have not done this season, so we’ve had an opportunity to get better at something in a game and still win the game. It was a great day.”
The victory comes after the team’s only loss of the year, which was sustained on Sept. 26 at Parklane Academy. Nicholson said he was proud of his team’s response in coming out and getting the rebound win.
“We challenged them all week to come back out and play our brand of football,” he said. “We didn’t feel like we played as good as we should have at Parklane. We needed to come back out and play Starkville Academy football, and I thought our guys did that. Defense played great, offense ran the ball good, but we have to find a way to score more points. We know that, we shot ourselves in the foot but we bounced back from a loss and got back on track. Our plan is to keep getting better and keep doing that.”
Up next for the Vols (5-1) is a Friday showdown hosting Magnolia Heights.
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