It all came apart in the second half.
The West Lowndes High School football team carried a two-point lead against Smithville into halftime of its game Friday night before reoccurring special teams woes, turnovers, and missed tackles turned the game on its head. The Seminoles outscored the Panthers 34-8 in the second half and won 55-31.
The Panthers’ defense surrendered its most points in a game this season after opening the year with four-straight shutouts.
The Panthers had crucial missed tackles on runs or passes that went for first downs or for gains that went for 20 yards or more on nearly 10 plays.
“A lot of guys were tired,” West Lowndes defensive tackle Tyrese Wells said. “We weren’t flying off the ball, coming up and hitting, and we missed a lot of tackles. But we’re going to get it straight in practice Monday.”
Smithville running back Dee Moore scored five touchdowns and ran for 141 yards on 24 carries, most of which were directed at the heart of West Lowndes’ defense.
“They’d pull their guards, sometimes they’d pull the tackles on counters,” Wells said. “We were trying to stunt and confuse them a little bit, but they adjusted to it. They’re a good team.”
Smithville struck in six plays to open the third quarter, including a 30-yard scoring run up the middle by Moore. West Lowndes quarterback Casey Smith Jr. fumbled at the Panthers’ 27-yard line, and Smithville scored three plays later.
West Lowndes (4-3, 2-1 Class 1A, Region 1) looked to stop Smithville’s surge, marching to the Seminoles’ 35 before flaming out on three-straight incompletions.
“Feed me the ball,” Marcus Farmer screamed to the sidelines after Smith Jr. checked down the ball on fourth down.
Smithville (6-1, 4-0 Class 1A, Region 1) scored seven plays later to take a 41-23 lead, but West Lowndes found life through Kentrell Guyton, who muffed the ensuing kickoff but returned it 82 yards for a score to pull the Panthers to 41-30 with 2 minutes, 12 seconds left in the third quarter. But Caleb Leech returned the ensuing kickoff for 58 yards — the Seminoles’ fourth kickoff return of 30 yards or more — and Smithville scored six plays later.
“We’ve been struggling on special teams all year,” West Lowndes coach Anthony King said. “We’ve been trying to give the starters a break (on special teams). They’re tired going both ways. We try to pooch kick it and we kick it too far, or we kick it to (Dee Moore). We’ve tried a few different things. It hurt us last week. We kicked a 4-yard squibbler. Tonight, everything we kicked deep, they pretty much returned it back.”
The Panthers then fumbled two plays into their next possession to set up Smithville’s final score.
“We tried a lot of different things,” King said. “The run game was there, but we got behind and tried to pass the ball to catch up. It just didn’t work out.
“We had too many turnovers, and they just beat us up front.”
The Panthers rushed for 279 yards on 31 carries, including 110 from Smith Jr., but he completed 2 of 11 passes.
“We knew we could keep it on the ground in the Wing-T offense and move the ball on them, but we didn’t hit the passes that were wide open,” King said. “You have some games like that. The passing game just needs to be consistent, from game to game, quarter to quarter, half to half. We have guys open, but we’re trying different guys at quarterback. Casey was out best guy tonight, but he couldn’t find the open receiver.”
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