Winona Christian football coach Junior Graham has said from the beginning that he thought Benton Academy was going to be one of the top teams in Class 3A this season.
And he has also said his team would struggle this season.
Graham was right on both counts on Friday night as Benton ran away with a 49-13 win over the Stars.
Winona is now 0-3 on the season and will host Winston Academy this week.
Graham said the game started bad from the outset and went downhill from there.
“Basically, they stole our lunch money and that’s about all that I can say. We fumbled the opening kick and didn’t rebound from there,” Graham said. “They have a complete team. They have a really good running back and a Division I guy up front. As long as they have all of their team healthy, they are really good. They are diverse on offense but didn’t have to throw it against us. We gave up two defensive scores early and in the blink of an eye, it’s 21-0 and we were playing catch up the whole game.”
The game started off on a bad foot for the Stars when a fumble gave Benton a short field on the opening kickoff. The Raiders then scored on a 2-yard run and kicked the PAT to take a 7-0 lead.
The Raiders then got back-to-back scores via turnover on a 55-yard interception return and a 40-yard interception return. The Raiders added a 14-yard run and led 28-0 at the end of the first quarter.
Winona’s only score in the first half came from special teams when Jake Ware scored on a 73-yard kickoff return. Reese Johnson kicked the PAT and Winona trailed 28-7.
But Benton answered with two more scores in the first half on runs of 9 and 7 yards to lead 42-7 at the half.
“I haven’t seen Centreville, but I think Benton is the second-best team in Class 3A,” Graham said. “It would be fun to watch them and Carroll because they are very similar. They have a really good football team and are very complete.”
Benton added a score in the fourth quarter while Winona’s last score came on a 9-yard run from Collin Parkinson for the final margin.
“We had some bright spots,” Graham said. “We had one score called back when we were running the option on an inadvertent whistle. We had another touchdown called back. I thought we did a good job of running midline and ran the right reads. We just never got any flow and couldn’t keep their offense off the field. Our team has a small margin for error. And we had five turnovers and I can’t see us winning a game when we turn the ball over five times unless the other team turns the ball over five times.”
The Stars struggled on offense with just 94 yards rushing and 30 passing. Ware led the rushing attack with 72 yards rushing on 10 carries. Ware struggled in the passing game, going 2-of-7 with three interceptions.
Meanwhile, Benton had 317 yards rushing and only threw one pass for 325 yards of total offense.
This week’s game
Winona will be at home this week as they host Class 4A Winston Academy.
The Patriots are 3-1 on the season. After a 35-7 loss to Leake to open the season, Winston has won three straight, beating Canton 36-24, Noxapater 37-15 and Central Holmes 43-8.
“It’s a bad matchup for us as far as they don’t play a ton of kids both ways,” Graham said. “They don’t have the receiver that they had last year but have some good players. They have picked up some players and you can tell they are better. I thought Central Holmes played them pretty good last week. The score wasn’t indicative of that game. They are a difficult opponent and a big school for us. We will try to strap it on and get better at what we do.”
Last year, Winona pulled out a 22-14 win over Winston.
