Take what the defense gives you.
As the West Lowndes Panthers continue to cultivate their vertical passing game, they’re keen to do it with balance and efficiency. Friday, in a district tilt with Hamilton High School, the Panthers, who lit up Kemper County with four touchdown passes last week, were forced to navigate their offense on the ground.
Still, the Panthers were just as explosive, rushing for 314 yards in a 36-0 win to remain undefeated (4-0) ahead of next week’s clash with Nanih Waiya.
Panthers sophomore quarterback Marquez Shelton, who had his breakout game last week with five total touchdowns, had a hand in all five of West Lowndes’ touchdowns against Hamilton. Shelton had four scores on the ground Friday, including a 34-yard run just three plays into the third quarter that effectively put the game out of reach.
“The offense didn’t really do what it was supposed to do with a team like Hamilton,” said Panthers coach Anthony King. “We were trying to establish the pass, but the run was there all night. Playing Nanih Waiya next week, we’re gonna have to be balanced.”
King was particularly displeased with the amount of mental mistakes and penalties by the Panthers, which are now a trend after being plagued with similar miscues last week. The Panthers finished with 10 penalties for 85 yards and put the ball on the ground four times, losing it once.
“It concerns me a whole lot,” King said. “We had another bad week of practice – it’s just been so hot, and guys had Homecoming. We try to get better each week, and we didn’t get hurt on our mistakes this week.”
King lauded his players for “bouncing back” after a slow first half in which they scored only twice and saw Hamilton clear West Lowndes’ 30 yard line two times, only to come up empty-handed through miscues of their own, including a dropped touchdown pass by Lions’ back Ty Hall.
West Lowndes defensive tackle Tommie Malone, who had three tackles for a loss Friday, said the miscues, if not cleaned up, will be “critical” plays when they face tougher teams.
“It feels good (to get a shutout), but we should have done better,” Malone said. “We didn’t execute. We weren’t focused. We couldn’t make the right blocks or the right reads on defense. We were arm tackling.
“We’re definitely doing better; we started 1-2 last year. So it feels good, even though we aren’t playing as good as we should.”
Hamilton (1-3) struggled to generate explosive plays, leaning on its backs, Hall and BJ Jones. Hall had 97 yards on 27 carries, but the methodical Hamilton offense lacked a knockout punch to keep pace with West Lowndes (4-0). And, similar to West Lowndes, the Lions had to overcome their own miscues.
“We’d make several good runs in a row, then do something to knock ourselves in the foot a little bit,” said Lions first-year head coach Wade Pierce. “And West Lowndes is incredibly athletic with some good ball players, but we got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
“We played really good in the first half, and I fell like we should have been ahead. We had two drives inside the 20. They played really hard for two and a half quarters before things got away.”
Though tackling proved to be an issue, Pierce was pleased with the play on the back end, particularly with defensive backs Jacob Imel, Rye Howard and Ran Honeycutt. The Lions gave up a 79-yard scoring pass to Jherquaveus Sanders in the first quarter but held Shelton to just 101 yards on 5 of 15 passing. Honeycutt and Hall each had an interception.
“We played mostly cover 3 and some cover 4,” Pierce said. “[Sanders] is a great player for them, and we knew if we could contain him, we’d have a chance. Things just got away from us [on defense] whenever we missed tackles.”
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