Jherquaveus Sanders took off down the left sideline through the wind and the rain.
There wasn’t a trace of the limp Sanders displayed postgame when the West Lowndes senior receiver caught a short pass from quarterback Melvin Crawford, found a seam near the sideline and outstripped the entirety of the Smithville defense.
Even on an injured ankle, even in adverse weather conditions, Sanders’ talent would not be denied. His 70-yard score with 6 minutes, 46 seconds to go in Friday’s game put the host Panthers up 12-6 on the No. 2 team in Class 1A, and Sanders tossed a 23-yard touchdown pass to Crawford with under three minutes to go to seal a huge 18-6 home victory for West Lowndes.
“He came through like Qua always does,” Panthers coach Anthony King said.
Sanders made slow progress off the field after the final whistle, but he said the victory outweighs any pain he was feeling.
“Ankle’s feeling pretty good,” Sanders said. “Ankle’s feeling great with the win.”
It was a big win indeed for the Panthers, who are now 7-1 and have an excellent shot at hosting a playoff game — nearly a certainty should they beat No. 3 Noxapater on the road next week.
With the way West Lowndes played Friday against Smithville — especially on defense and down the stretch — the Panthers should have an excellent shot.
Forced to rely more heavily on their running game, the Seminoles’ solid passing game was limited.
“We knew the weather was gonna keep them from throwing it as much as they wanted to, so we were that the weather played in our favor,” King said.
Smithville’s lone touchdown, though, was through the air: a 28-yard pass from Octavion Miller to Dyllan Moffett with 6:06 left in the third quarter.
The score was the Seminoles’ eventual answer to a 17-yard touchdown from West Lowndes running back Kelvin Wilburn 56 seconds into the second quarter.
Wilburn’s score was the culmination of a three-play sequence that might have been as big as any in Friday’s game.
With the Seminoles driving into West Lowndes territory, defensive lineman Tyler Blackwell picked off a pass from Miller at the Panthers’ 37-yard line and ran it back to the Smithville 45.
“He’s one of our alpha males up front, and he always comes through, and he came through with a big interception when we needed it,” King said of Blackwell.
The senior’s big play set up a deep pass from Crawford that Sanders hauled in at the Seminoles’ 17. Wilburn took a middle handoff and waltzed in on the next play, finishing the transformation of a Smithville scoring chance in a scoreless game to a West Lowndes touchdown.
The teams traded punts and stops and more punts and more stops before, on the Panthers’ second drive of the third quarter, Moffett picked off Crawford on an overthrow then took Miller’s pass to the house on the Seminoles’ first offensive play, tying the game.
Trusted with the ball on a third-down play in the middle of the fourth quarter, Sanders made sure it wouldn’t stay tied for too long. He caught Crawford’s screen pass, and he was off to the races.
On the Panthers’ next drive, with the objective of running out the clock on the Seminoles, Sanders got the ball every time. He raced into Smithville territory with a 33-yard scamper, was stopped twice on run plays and tossed a 23-yard score to Crawford to give the upstart Panthers an upset win they needed against one of the top teams in their class.
“They came over, and we beat them pretty good, so it feels pretty good,” Sanders said.
King said being able to beat Smithville — a first in West Lowndes history — meant “a whole lot” to the team and the school.
“We’re trying to get this program to take the next step,” King said. “We want to get to where Smithville is, build that tradition.”
A positive outcome in the team’s final home contest means the Panthers’ seniors can go out with a signature win. West Lowndes has three straight road games to close its 2019 slate, and the Panthers are happy to send off Sanders and his fellow seniors the way they hoped for.
“We’re gonna miss all of them, but we’re glad they came out with a win,” King said. “That’s all we can ask for.”
West Lowndes 18, Smithville 6
Smithville 0 0 6 0 — 6
West Lowndes 0 6 0 12 — 18
Second quarter
11:04 WL — Kelvin Wilburn 17 run (kick failed)
Third quarter
6:06 S — Dyllan Moffett 28 pass from Octavion Miller (run failed)
Fourth quarter
6:46 WL — Jherquaveus Sanders 70 pass from Melvin Crawford (run failed)
2:54 WL — Crawford 23 pass from Sanders (run failed)
Team statistics
S WL
First downs 17 11
Rushes-yards 44-185 24-116
Passing yards 95 190
Comp.-att.-int. 9-21-1 10-23-1
Penalties-yards 7-69 9-95
Fumbles-lost 2-1 4-1
Individual statistics
RUSHING: Smithville — Octavion Miller 20-100, Jabril Smith 23-78, Landon McMellon 1-7; West Lowndes — Jherquaveus Sanders 10-64, Albert Plair 9-29, Kelvin Wilburn 4-21, Melvin Crawford 1-2
PASSING: Smithville — Octavion Miller 9-21, 95; West Lowndes — Melvin Crawford 9-22, 167; Jherquaveus Sanders 1-1, 23.
RECEIVING: Smithville — Dyllan Moffett 1-28, Jordan Wardlaw 2-24, Landon McMellon 2-18, Blake Duncan 2-15, Jabril Smith 2-10; West Lowndes — Jherquaveus Sanders 6-131, Albert Plair 2-25, Melvin Crawford 1-23, Decamby Willis 1-11.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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