WEST POINT – West Point was gracious enough to let Noxubee County perform the opening act Friday night.
After that, it was all Green Wave all the time.
In a highly-anticipation matchup of state title contenders, the suspense was removed early as West Point rolled over Noxubee County 47-6 before a capacity crowd at Hamblin Stadium.
“With Oxford coming up next week, we really wanted to make a statement,” West Point junior wide receiver Jason Brownlee said. “This was a big game for us against a good team. We just worked real hard in practice and the results showed tonight on the scoreboard.”
With the acquisition of quarterback Clayton Knight during the off-season, it appeared a potential final piece was in place for West Point to make a run at this season’s Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 5A state championship.
Still, West Point (3-1) had struggled mightily out of the gate on the offensive side of the ball. In a loss to Starkville and win over Columbus, West Point was held to three combined touchdowns. Suddenly, the Green Wave found the end zone with ease Friday night against one of the best defenses in the state.
“It really came together,” Knight said. “We had been working real hard in practice and pointing for a night like this. The offensive line played its best game of the season. That gave us some holes and some opportunities. If we can run the ball like that, it’s gives us so many more options.”
West Point coach Chris Chambless has not been worried about the final statistics for his team’s four non-region games. Last season’s starter at quarterback, Marcus Murphy, has done other things on the offensive side of the ball and shared reps with Knight at his old position.
“We have two different systems this year,” Chambless said. “We have a passing quarterback (Knight) and a running quarterback (Murphy). Each brings something totally different to the table. Our purpose in the first four games was run to a lot of passing sets and running sets with each quarterback. We wanted to see what worked and what didn’t work.
“Now you go into region play and it’s a different game. We will be a different team next week. We will have our final plan for the season. However tonight, you saw a lot of really good things. You saw a lot of the things that we want to do going forward. The offense previously may have been held back because we were trying some things. Tonight, those things worked.”
Murphy ran for a season-best 167 yards and three touchdowns. Overall, the West Point “ground and pound” chalked up 282 yards – far better than last week’s 225 combined total yards against Columbus. In the air, Knight was 7-of-9 for 173 yards and his multi-touchdown game with West Point (two). Brownlee and Demarrio Edwards scored as receivers. Andre Lane also scored on the ground.
“The offensive line was really great tonight,” Murphy said. “The thing about this team is everybody didn’t get down after the Starkville loss. We just kept working hard and believing in what we were doing. Even though we didn’t get the (statistical) results we wanted last week (against Columbus), we felt like we were going in the right direction.”
Noxubee County (2-3) took the opening kickoff and drove 79 yards on just five plays. Maliek Stallings completed three passes on the drive and called his ow number for the touchdown.
After being held without a touchdown in the first half against Columbus, West Point quickly responded with its own 79-yard drive. Murphy capped it with the go-ahead score.
After that, the West Point defense came up big with Everett Cunningham, Terrence Cherry and Trevino Harris making key stops to force a turnover on downs at the West Point 6-yard line.
Murphy then raced untouched 94 yards for the game-changing touchdown.
From there, things went backwards for the Tigers, who followed with three straight turnovers. Keonta Hampton had an interception. Cherry had a strip and Jaylon Webb had a fumble recovery. Jason Brownlee had a strip and Xavier Fair had a fumble recovery.
West Point scored two touchdowns on the three takeaways.
“Sometimes players do not realize there are two parts to the turnover,” Chambless said. “When you have a turnover, you can’t let your guard down on defense. You can still go out, make a play and make sure the turnover does not hurt your team. We did a great job of forcing the turnovers and then getting the scores.
“We complete each part of the process and that was really big.”
On this night, everything was big for West Point. The momentum will be needed with the MHSAA Class 5A, Region 1 opener against Oxford set for this Friday at Hamblin Stadium.
Oxford has beaten West Point twice in each of the last two seasons.
“There will not be a lot of talking this week,” Edwards said. “Everybody knows what the next game means to our season.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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