WEST POINT — The West Point High School football team new Class 5A, Region 1 rival Lake Cormorant played their game Friday in ankle-deep mud.
And the Gators were positively stuck in it.
The Green Wave held the Gators to 98 yards offense despite a slow start from their defensive line. It took a quarter to warm up, but the machine came alive in the second quarter and carried West Point to a 43-0 victory.
West Point led 6-0 thanks to a 27-yard touchdown run from Jacoby Lee near the end of the first quarter when the domination began.
Lake Cormorant was trapped on both sides of the ball in the second quarter, as it gained only 5 yards and surrendered 28 points.
Mississippi State commitment Michael Carr got West Point when he caught a pass in stride from quarterback Justin Cox and went 43 yards for a touchdown.
Cox also found Brandon Edwards for the two-point conversion.
Less than two minutes later, Carr struck again on a 20-yard run. West Point recovered a botched kickoff at Lake Cormorant’s 38 and scored two minutes later when Cox hit Michael Bush in the end zone from 25 yards out.
Stefon Branham, who plowed in from 3 yards for the final score of the quarter.
Lake Cormorant quarterback Mike Williams served up several near interceptions in the second quarter, and safety Gary Hughes intercepted one to end the second quarter and send West Point into the locker room with a 34-0 lead.
“We’re a spread team. We get out here in the mud and the timing is off,” Lake Cormorant coach Nick Nester said. “There was nothing we could do. They had to play in it and we had to play in it. They just played better than we did.”
West Point coach Chris Chambless felt the same way.
“We had the advantage because they throw the ball a lot. They don’t run,” he said.
Chambless said his team thrives on muddy practices.
“We like to get after it in the mud,” Chambless said.
The third and fourth quarters played out quickly and quietly, with Makarios Sears providing a 3-yard touchdown in the third quarter and Kwame Williams adding a chip-shot field goal in the fourth quarter.
Lake Cormorant stopped West Point from scoring touchdowns on its last two drives, even though the Green Wave advanced past the Gators’ 10-yard line both times.
West Point (6-1) will close its regular season against Saltillo, Clarksdale, and Hernando. Lake Cormorant (3-5) will play Oxford, Saltillo, and Clarksdale.
