STARKVILLE – On a night where Starkville was vying to end a three-game homestand with its third victory, Madison Central rolled into town Friday and left as the villains.
A late interception of Yellow Jacket quarterback Kingston Johnson with 55 seconds left to play gave way to a 40-yard field goal by Madison Central’s Ross Harden Beavers as time expired to leave the Yellow Jackets on the wrong side of a thriller on Halloween night.
In the crime of their lost ball game, the usual suspects were at play: an offense that stalled out on key drives late and a defense that gave up too many explosive plays. Along with the foot of Beavers, dropped passes, an 0-5 mark on fourth down conversions, getting outgained 448-368 in offensive yards and too many examples of busted coverage were all killers for the Jackets, who had their two-game win streak in Region 2-7A play snapped in part by four touchdown throws by Jags’ quarterback Tripp Smith.
“We didn’t play very good at the end of the game in the secondary, and at the same time offensively we left a lot of plays out there,” Starkville head coach John Carr said. “We didn’t execute at a high level tonight. We did at times and at the end of the day they made more plays than we did.”
Johnson finished the game on 12-of-37 passing for 220 yards and two interceptions, but made his impact on the ground. He punched in two touchdown runs of 11 and 23 yards in the second quarter to counter a 49-yard touchdown run by Jaguar running back Mikel Stephen and a 38-yard scoring strike from quarterback Smith to Landon Hathorn. Just before halftime, A strong push from Starkville’s front on special teams led to a blocked punt, which Joshua Wilson scooped up and returned 10 yards to give his team a 21-14 lead at halftime.
Smith came out of the break and immediately found Eli Dampier wide open for a 21-yard touchdown pass. Johnson ran in a 1-yard touchdown run, his last of the night, in response for another brief lead, but Smith found Dampier once again, this time from 26 yards to tie it at 28-28 heading into the fourth quarter. With 7:42 left to play, Torien Knox broke free for a 64-yard touchdown, but one minute later the Jags struck again. Smith delivered his final scoring throw of the night on a 10-yard pass to Tylan Hutchins to silence the cheering Starkville crowd and tie it at 35-35 before Beavers’ heroics sealed their win.
In the postgame huddle Carr delivered a message on learning and moving forward. The Yellow Jackets (6-2, 2-2) have a lot of film to digest and learn from before ending the regular season on Nov. 6 at Oxford for the Little Egg Bowl.
“We’ve got to put this behind us and move on,” he said.
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