Special to the Item
The Picayune Item
PICAYUNE —
Poplarville High coach Chris Teal said he firmly believes that youth on his team will be served at some point this football season.
Friday night was not that time.
A night-long skein of penalties, second-half turnovers and first-game flailing led to a 20-7 opening-night loss to visiting Columbia High School at Hornet Stadium.
“We’re young on both sides of the ball,” Teal said. “The guys that are playing, they’re young but they’re talented. We’re going to go through some growing pains, but (Friday) was tough to swallow.”
Teal’s frustration was not based on the effort of the Hornets, but on a lack of execution, particularly on offense in a first half where Poplarville netted 14 total yards, including minus 1 yard rushing on 17 carries.
“We’re doing a new blocking scheme, but my gosh, we’ve been doing it since July 26,” Teal said. “No excuses. We’ve just got to make sure that we do our job, and (Friday) we didn’t.”
Yet despite the mistakes and missteps, the Hornets trailed only 10--0 at halftime and 13-0 with just about 7 minutes to play.
“It was a two-possession game up until then,” Teal said.
That was, in part, because Columbia also displayed a serious case of first game-itis.
Both teams also had to work through a slew of yellow flags, 26 penalties that cost both a combined 185 yards.
“That’s just that I’ve got to do a better job of getting them ready,” Columbia head coach Doug Norris said. “I was proud of the effort. It was ugly, but we”ll take an ugly win any day.”
The difference might have come under center, where Columbia had the experience in senior quarterback in Aaron Ellzey.
Ellzey attempted just four passes, but hit three of them for 131 yards and a touchdown. He also kicked a pair of field goals for the Wildcats.
His 26-yarder capped the opening possession of the game, and left the Wildcats ahead 3-0 after a quarter.
Both teams squandered chances, with Columbia losing a fumble at the Poplarville 34-yard line, and bad snaps spoiling two field-goal attempts by the Hornets.
Just as it appeared that the score might hold up through halftime, Ellzey swung a pass out to running back Darius Quinn on a circle route to the right. Quinn ran out of the initial hit and then shook off a second before outrunning everyone down the sideline the last 45 yards to complete a 62-yard scoring play just 1 minute, 47 seconds before halftime.
Ellzey set up his own 22-yard field goal on Columbia”s first possession of the second half by floating a 48-yard pass to wingback Aaron Mikell to the Poplarville 10.
“That was a cheapie,” Teal said, alluding to a missed assignment.
Poplarville contributed to its own second-half woes. Quarterback Drake Hodges, who completed 4 of 15 passes for 74 yards, opened the third quarter with a 33-yard completion to wideout Dexter Childs, but was picked off at the Wildcat 18 on the next snap.
The Hornets’ second fumble of the half set up Columbia’s final score.
Running back Divian Nelson carried four times to cover 26 yards, including the final 5 yards for the touchdown.
Freshman running back Tyus Raine, who provided a spark for the Hornets with 105 yards on 11 carries, got Poplarville on the board with 28 seconds to play, gouging through a gap in the middle on a 1-yard run. His slicing, 44-yard run through the left side set up the score.
“He”s going to be a good one,” Teal said.
Norris said he thought the same of Poplarville as a whole.
“Poplarville plays hard,” Norris said. “They play hard, and they”re headed in the right direction, they really are.”
