French Camp football coach Nathan Wright has said that he has felt like he has his defense lined up like he wanted.
But so far, the offense has struggled to find the end zone. That was until the third quarter on Friday night.
The Panthers scored 30 unanswered points and pulled away to take a 36-6 win over Ethel in a key Region 3-1A matchup.
French Camp improves to 2-0 in region play and 2-4 overall. They will now travel to West Lowndes on Friday night with first place in the region on the line.
Wright said he thought his team turned the corner in the second half against an “improved” Ethel team.
“It was a good game and Ethel is very much improved,” Wright said. “We kind of caught a break late in the third and they got behind the eight ball and we were able to hit some big passes and that’s what hurt them. It was pretty much anybody’s game until the third quarter. I just hope we can keep on improving. It was a good win for us.”
The game was tight in the first half until Cody Perry scored on a 31-yard run in the second quarter. The PAT failed and French Camp led 6-0 at the half.
In the third quarter, Ethel got a 60-yard punt return from Kentrell Dotson to tie the game up at 6-6.
That is when French Camp got rolling with three third-quarter scores.
The first was a 26-yard pass from Cody Perry to Rob Surrette. Silas Hodge ran in the two-point conversion and took a 14-6 lead.
The Panthers then got a safety from Macon Bentley to extend the lead to 16-6 and finished up the quarter with a 2-yard run from Silas Hodge. Perry then hit Ethan Wright for the two-point conversion and the Panthers led 24-6 at the end of the third.
The Panthers continued to air it out in the fourth quarter as they threw a pair of touchdown passes. The first was a 26-yard touchdown pass to Surrette and the second was a 21-yard pass to Gavin Fox.
“I thought like we may have turned the corner on offense in the second half and started clicking,” Wright said. “We were still shooting ourselves in the foot in the first half, overthrowing passes and doing stupid things. It’s like every drive we would do something to stall the drive. But in the second half, I thought we were pretty crisp, and it looked like what I expect us to look like down the road.”
The Panthers had 244 yards rushing and 122 passing for 366 yards of total offense. Perry was 6-of-12 passing and threw three touchdowns. Perry also rushed for 108 yards on eight carries while Hodge had 109 yards on 19 carries. Surrette had three catches for 87 yards.
On defense, Ethan Wright had a big game with 14 solo tackles and seven assists while Wesley Vowell had six solo tackles and five assists. Hodge had a big night as well with eight solo talks and two assists with four tackles for loss. Surrette had two solo tackles and eight assists. Clay Dean had four solo tackles and four assists while Abu Sillah had one solo tackle and eight assists. Macon Bentley had six solo tackles and two pass deflections while Avery Summers had four solo tackles and two assists. Bradley McCoy and Javon Hood each had four solo tackles and an assist while Perry had two solo tackles and three assists with one tackle for loss. Wright, J.D. Leach and Bryan Stansberry also had fumble recoveries for French Camp.
“Right now, we are very happy with the defense and they are getting after it,” Wright said. “They are where they need to be. And we played without our best defensive player and I thought the kids responded well without him. I was a concerned because Ethel had run over everybody they had played, and they were the most physical Ethel team I had seen. I’m just happy that we were fortunate enough to slow them down. They were very much improved from what they have been.”
This week’s game
The Panthers will hit the road this week as they take on West Lowndes in a key district contest.
The Panthers are 4-2 on the season and 3-0 in region 3-1A play. West Lowndes has losses to Biggersville (21-7) and Tupelo Christian (24-22) with wins over Okolona (28-12), Noxapater (58-0), Sebastopol (28-22) and Leake County (25-8).
“Typically, they have a lot of athletes and are big up front,” Wright said. “They have lots of kids that can run, and they seem like a typical West Lowndes team. I just hope that we can move them around and find an opening or two. They aren’t going to hide what they are trying to do. If you can’t block them, it’s going to be a long night.”
