FLOWOOD — The Starkville High School football team’s search for answers produced a new one in the final minutes Friday of what it hoped would be a comeback win.
But the answer fell 1 yard short.
On a night little worked, No. 1 Starkville lost to No. 7 Northwest Rankin 27-20 in a Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 6A, District 2 game.
Starkville (5-1, 1-1 district), the top-ranked team in The Associated Press rankings, fell short after tight end Atavius Jones caught a 9-yard completion when it needed 10 to keep the game alive.
“Back to work. We’ll be fine. Maybe this will humble us a little bit,” Starkville coach Chris Jones said. “There’s no excuses. We should have found a way to win. We didn’t find a way to win.”
The game was tied at 13 thanks in part to a defense that, outside of a 70-yard touchdown, held Northwest Rankin (5-1, 2-0) to 3.1 yards per play.
Unfortunately, mistakes haunted Starkville. Using starting running back Dreke Clark on the perimeter as a decoy, KJ Lawrence ran through a distracted defense only to see a penalty ruin what would have been a fourth-and-1 conversion attempt. The Yellow Jackets went back to Lawrence, but they fumbled the ball.
“A lot of calls that, to me, were really questionable, but at the end of the day we know we have to play ball,” Jones said. “In my opinion, the kids should decide the game. It shouldn’t be in the hands of the officials. I don’t mind losing if it’s really the kids playing ball. Hat’s off to them, they’re a great team and we have to play better. We can’t look at calls.
“He was down. It’s obvious he was down, but they said fumble.”
When asked which calls bothered him, Jones said, “All of them. Bad, man. I can’t fake it.”
Starkville was called for 10 penalties for 83 yards.
Two incompletions and an early snap set back the next two possessions. Trailing early in the fourth quarter, the Yellow Jackets returned to junior wide receiver Rufus Harvey (six first-half catches for 111 yards), but Harvey was hurt on the second play and didn’t return. Still, Starkville used an offside penalty on fourth-and-5 and a 21-yard run from Lawrence to set up a quarterback sneak score by Luke Altmyer that tied the game with a little more than eight minutes to go.
Penalties did Starkville’s next possession in before Northwest Rankin’s Jarrian Jones, a Mississippi State commit, made a 70-yard touchdown catch. He said he encouraged quarterback Jamari Jones to fire him the ball in the soft spot of Starkville’s Cover 2 and the two connected for the game-winning score.
Starkville’s Jones stressed his team needs to get better in all areas.
“We have to make big plays when it matters,” Jones said.
Clark said he wants a focus to be starting games better. He thought the team wasn’t focused in the first half, which might have shown when Starkville lost a 10-3 lead before halftime.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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