STARKVILLE — For the second week in a row, the Starkville High School football team found a way to make the plays when it needed it the most.
After narrowly defeating Madison Central a week ago, Starkville once again rose to the occasion to down Tupelo 10-7 on Friday night.
“We will take a win,” Starkville coach Jamie Mitchell said. “Two weeks in a row we”ve won by a field goal.”
The Yellow Jackets managed only 143 yards, but its defense pulled through, holding the Golden Wave to 102 yards (28 rushing) and recording six sacks, led by senior linebacker Alex Graham”s three-sack effort.
“(The defense) was just absolutely lights out,” Mitchell said.
Quarterback Gabe Myles led Starkville with 108 yards and a touchdown. Myles completed 8 of 19 passes for 77 yards and a touchdown. He added another 31 rushing yards on 14 attempts.
The teams went into halftime locked in a scoreless stalemate. They combined for only 74 yards of offense (Starkville 56, Tupelo 18) in the first half.
But a Golden Wave fumble on the fourth play of the second half allowed the Yellow Jackets to capitalize for the first points.
The Yellow Jackets took over at the 40-yard line and moved close enough for Charlie Henderson to kick a 30-yard field goal.
Starkville finally found the end zone with 1 minute, 38 seconds to play in the third quarter when Myles connected with Preston Baker on a 23-yard touchdown pass. Henderson kicked the extra point to give the Yellow Jackets a 10-0 lead.
But Tupelo rallied in the final quarter and took advantage of a muffed punt by Baker that was recovered at the SHS 38-yard line. Three penalties aided a drive that saw senior running back Tenerious Montgomery plow in from 4 yards to pull the Golden Wave within a field goal with a little more than eight minutes to play.
Tupelo had only one more possession the rest of the way and gave itself an opportunity to tie the game with three minutes remaining. Senior quarterback Luke Hobson orchestrated a 12-play drive that started at his 14 to set up a game-tying 38-yard field goal by Drew White. But junior Devin Mitchell came off the left edge to block the attempt to save the win and improve Starkville to 2-1.
“It”s kind of ironic that we”ve worked so hard on field goal block this week and what a play,” Mitchell said. “That was the difference in the game. It paid off.”
The loss drops David Bradberry”s Tupelo squad to 1-2. Hobson led the Golden Wave with 103 yards of offense completing 5 of 18 passes for 78 yards and rushing 15 times for 29 yards.
Tupelo was playing without the services of junior running back Ashton Shumpert, who is out three to four weeks with a stress fracture in his lower leg suffered in the Golden Wave”s jamboree.
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