MERIDIAN — Behind a stellar defense along with a balanced offensive attack the Lamar School Raiders got past Starkville Academy 27-7 in the season opener at Grey Cobb Field on Friday night in the opening game of the 2024 campaign.
“I’ve been here three years, and we haven’t been 1-0 because we keep getting beat by those guys, so it’s nice and my first time being undefeated in my coaching career,” Land said. “Defense played unbelievable, and they are so fast. We knew we could hang our hat on was our defense and they showed out tonight.”
Lamar scored on the first drive of the game and on fourth down as Wyatt Bond hit Jalin Trotter on a 26-yard touchdown pass to give the Raiders a 6-0 lead with 8:08 left in the first quarter.
Midway through the second quarter after Bond found Trotter on a 45-yard pass play down the near sideline, Ashton Jones plunged into the end zone from a yard out to extend the Lamar School lead to 13-0 with 7:28 left.
After the Raiders recovered a fumble on the opening kickoff of the second half, Jones found the end zone for a second time from six yards out to give Lamar a 20-0 lead with 9:45 left in the third quarter.
Starkville Academy’s lone score came on a 32-yard touchdown run by Luke Johnson with 3:43 left in the third quarter to cut the Raider lead to 20-7.
Lamar answered on the following drive as Khari Towner scored on a 11-yard run to give the Raiders the 27-7 lead and sealed the win.
Jones finished the night with 167 yards rushing on 30 carries with two touchdowns to lead Lamar School.
The Raider defense held Starkville Academy to 70 yards rushing and 177 yards of total offense.
“In the second half I felt like we controlled the line of scrimmage up front on both sides of the ball,” Land said. “Wyatt wasn’t perfect tonight, but it’s the first game and somethings went wrong, but our offense is good, and we will get better.”
Bond, a Jones College commit, finished the night 13-of-26 passing for 154 yards and a touchdown.
“Our run game was dominant from the start, especially in the second half to close the game, and it was able to open up the pass easier. I didn’t have my best game but when I don’t have my best game and we win by 20 that’s a great sign for the rest of the team,” Bond said. “Up front the offensive line did a really good job and a veteran group. They set the tone and so did the defense. Feels good to be 1-0 and to get things going rather in the past it took us a little bit to get going. We’re a mature team and I feel like we can just keep things going.”
Luke McKenzie had 107 yards passing for Starkville Academy. Johnson added 43 yards rushing and a touchdown for the Volunteers (0-1).
“We couldn’t get in rhythm on offense and couldn’t string together good plays,” said Starkville Academy coach Chase Nicholson. “We’d have to stop having a good play then a bad play right afterwards and you can’t do that. We have to string it all together and get something going. Defense played well tonight and kept us in the game for the most part. We will go back and get better from this game.”
Next week, Lamar School is off, while Starkville Academy hosts Chambers Academy (Ala.).
BOX SCORE
1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Total
Starkville Academy (0-1) 0 0 7 0 7
Lamar School (1-0) 6 7 14 0 27
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