GREENWOOD — Tyrone Shorter couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling.
With each fumble, penalty, dropped interception, or missed scoring opportunity, the Noxubee County High School football coach silently wondered if this wasn’t his team’s night.
In a season filled with injuries and more than the typical share of adversity, Shorter could only hope the Tigers were going to stick together and find a way the overcome the mistakes and a hungry bunch of Greenwood High Bulldogs.
“I told the guys at halftime, this is the type of game they have been winning,” Shorter said of Greenwood, which beat Kosciusko by one point last week in the final two minutes on its home field. “They have been keeping it close, keeping it close, keeping it close and then they find a way to win it at the end.
“I am not going to lie. It was going through my mind, like I know this is not fixin’ to happen to us.”
When it was over and Noxubee County found a way to survive for a 14-7 victory in the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 4A North State championship game, all Shorter and the Tigers could do was exhale and take solace in the fact they have one more week to play the complete game that has been missing all season.
“We just stunk up the field tonight,” Shorter said. “The plays were there. (Offensive coordinator and assistant) coach (James) Patterson did a great job calling plays. We just got in the red zone and stalled.
“I will take it. We can win by 100 or we can win by one.”
The victory helped reigning Class 4A champion Noxubee County (11-4) set up a rematch against St. Stanislaus (11-3) in the state title game at 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, at Ole Miss’ Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Last season, Noxubee County defeated St. Stanislaus 48-27 at Mississippi State’s Davis Wade Stadium for the program’s third championship.
This season, Noxubee County will attempt to make history as the school’s first football team to win back-to-back state titles.
The next-to-last step toward that goal saw the Tigers wrapped up in a battle against themselves and the Bulldogs (12-2), who were looking for payback after a 21-0 loss to the Tigers in the Class 4A playoffs. But a fast start by the Tigers made it look like the game was going to be a blowout. Noxubee County took advantage of an interception to break the ice on a 16-yard touchdown pass from Timorrius Conner to Ladaveon Smith with 2 minutes, 41 seconds left in the first quarter.
Following another interception, senior defensive end Jeffery Simmons scored on a 1-yard run with 38 seconds left in the first quarter. Samuel Lowery’s kick made it 14-0.
But that’s when things started to go haywire for the Tigers.
In all, Noxubee County lost three of four fumbles, dropped at least three interceptions, committed 11 penalties, and failed to score six times when it had possession at the Bulldogs’ 20-yard line or better.
Noxubee County even had trouble when it was in position to make a play. With Greenwood facing a fourth-and-10 from the Noxubee County 17 early in the second quarter, the Tigers had defensive backs in front of and behind Marquiss Spencer near the right pylon. But the Tigers’ defensive back in front of Spencer jumped too soon, which allowed the ball to go over his head for a touchdown.
“We made it hard,” Simmons said. “We made everything hard. We had some busted coverages and busted assignments. If we did those things, it would have been easy.”
Three of Noxubee County’s fumbles came at the 1-yard line with it apparently going in for touchdowns. In the first quarter, Kymbotric Mason lost the football after catching a pass from Conner. That one didn’t hurt as much because the Tigers capitalized on one of four interceptions and scored four plays later on Simmons’ plunge.
Simmons committed the second and third fumbles at the goal line. He recovered the first fumble on third down from the 1. Simmons took the ball again on fourth down and appeared have possession when he broke the plane of the goal line. The near-side official signaled touchdown, but a scramble ensued in the end zone as Simmons lost the ball. The officials huddled and talked for several minutes before ruling Simmons fumbled.
“It was just minor mistakes,” Simmons said when asked why the game was so hard. “We weren’t communicating at first on defense. It was just the little things we have to fix as a team.”
If those plays weren’t frustrating enough, Noxubee County added to the agony in the fourth quarter when Ty’Quintin Ramsey fumbled following an 18-yard gain that moved the football to the Greenwood 13 with a little more than two minutes remaining. The turnover gave the Bulldogs what turned out to be one last chance, but the Tigers were up for the challenge. Greenwood, which beat Kosciusko 23-22 last week thanks to a touchdown pass and a two-point conversion in the final two minutes, had incomplete passes on first and second downs, a 1-yard gain on third down, and a 1-yard loss on fourth down with less than two minutes remaining.
“It is about defense. Defense wins championships,” Simmons said of a defense that limited the Bulldogs to 5 yards rushing and 131 yards passing. “The more we had to go on the field, the more we had to get off the field and put our offense back on the field.”
Even on its final drive, Noxubee County couldn’t deliver the knockout punch, as a holding penalty erased a 10-yard touchdown run by Ladaveon Smith.
Shorter credited Greenwood’s defense for making things tough for his offense. While Conner threw for 153 yards, the Tigers stalled in the red zone and had several dropped passes that added to their woes.
Still, the Tigers found a way.
“We stayed together,” Shorter said. “Everybody counted us out when we went on that four-game losing streak. Look at us now. We have a chance to make history.”
Noxubee County senior center Bobby May said he wasn’t surprised by the team’s ability to keep its focus on a night when little went right. He said almost every game has been a battle for the Tigers, so the latest fight wasn’t anything new.
Noxubee County senior linebacker Quendarrion Barnett said the Tigers came out sluggish and didn’t capitalize on the chances for big plays in the first half that could have helped them put the game away. He said he and his teammates didn’t celebrate after the game because they know they have to return to practice Monday and go harder because they made the game against Greenwood harder than it was supposed to be. He knows St. Stanislaus won’t allow Noxubee County to get away with the mistakes it committed in the North State title game.
Simmons agreed and said Noxubee County should have put Greenwood away by halftime. As frustrating as it was for him to say those words, he and his teammates realized the victory gave them a chance to write an ending that befits a history-making team.
“We haven’t played a complete game yet,” Simmons said. “I feel like next week if we just put everything together we can be a complete team. I feel like we are the best team, so we just have to come together and compete as a team.”
Said Barnett, “We have to get it right, and why not get it right on the biggest stage.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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