MACON – As the penalty flags were piling up, Noxubee County’s 14-9 lead late in the third quarter against Yazoo County began to look slimmer and more enticing to the visiting Panthers.
Playing cleanly has been an issue of late for the Tigers, and in Friday’s first-round Class 3A playoff contest, flags for false starts and holding proved to be drive-killers and left the door cracked open for the Panthers to initiate a comeback.
Well, Tigers quarterback Jykeim Goodwin and star athlete Jadien Taylor had something to say about that.
Goodwin fired a 30-yard touchdown to receiver Cameron Chandler, Taylor picked up a fumble and returned it for a score and then charged in for a 1-yard run to give Noxubee three touchdowns within the first three minutes of the fourth quarter. Their combined effort quickly yanked the game out of the Panthers’ reach and advanced Noxubee to the second round of the playoffs with a decisive 41-15 victory.
Taylor said head coach Teddy Young lit a fire under them at halftime and challenged the team to come out and play like it was a playoff match and not just a normal game.
“We knew we could pick it up, so we picked it up,” said Taylor, who finished the game with three total touchdowns.
Young said his halftime message was necessary. There was no fire and no fight within the team on the field and that had to change.
“We just weren’t focused,” he said. “I told them, ‘You can easily go home with any type of bad night any Friday night from here on out, and they finally got it clicking and got it rolling. We played how we should have in the fourth quarter when the game got closer, a one-possession game. We just have to get back more focused, and I think this game right here woke them up.”
Despite some sleepwalking in the first half, Noxubee finished off a long drive of 59 yards in seven plays with a 3-yard touchdown pass from Goodwin to Chandler on fourth down, who hauled in the high-thrown ball with a one-handed grab amongst tight coverage. Then the penalties began to stack. The Panthers utilized a pass interference call on the Tigers, who were penalized 14 times in the game, to set up a 34-yard field goal to make it 7-3 at the end of the first quarter. Goodwin broke free for a 48-yard touchdown run, the second of his three total scores, to give the Tigers a 14-3 lead it held until the beginning of the third quarter.
The Panthers opened the second half with a set of aggressive runs, one of which running back Chandler Hardman turned into a 38-yard touchdown run to cut it to a one-score game after the missed 2-point conversion.
After a long quarter of punts and groans from the Tigers’ coaching staff, Goodwin and Taylor got the team rolling. Taylor added the last of his three scores with 4:50 left to play, slicing and dicing the Panthers on the ground as he danced his way in for a 30-yard touchdown run.
A late hit on the following kickoff by the Tigers gave the Panthers a better shot at the end zone just before the final buzzer, and they capitalized with a 26-yard touchdown pass to end the game.
Young said there’s a lot to fix before next week’s second-round game, but the team is glad they are moving on to play Coahoma County, which defeated Alcorn Central 50-7 on Friday.
“We’re excited; we get to keep playing,” he said. “Like I told them, ‘It wasn’t a pretty win, but we’ll take it.’ We’ll take it, we’ll fix it and get ready for next week.”
Taylor, who Young said is the leader of the team, is already on to Coahoma.
“We have to come back, show up and work. This win is behind us. We’re trying to go 1-0 every week,” he said.
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