The French Camp Panthers saw their football season come to an end last week.
Taylorsville jumped out to an 18-0 lead and held on to take a 31-13 win over the Panthers Friday night in the first round of the Class 1A playoffs.
French Camp finishes the season with a 5-7 record.
Long-time coach Nathan Wright said the Panthers just didn’t get the breaks when they needed it against a talented Taylorsville team.
“We just didn’t get the right bounces or the right calls,” Wright said. “We showed up to play and were as healthy as we have been all year. Taylorsville is really good on offense and didn’t need a lot of help. I think most of it was us beating ourselves. I felt like most of it was us being in the wrong place. They have three guys in the open field that you have to keep boxed in and we let them get loose a couple of times. I thought we played hard, we just had too many mistakes.”
The Tartars took the early lead, scoring on a. 37-yard touchdown pass to go up 6-0.
“We came out and played well and we had them third and 20 and got a bad pass interference call,” Wright said. “They back judge who was away from the play threw the flag and the guy closest to the play didn’t. It was stuff like that all night.”
The Panthers got the ball back and hit a long pass but fumbled on the 2-yard line.
“We got the ball back and marched it down the field. We threw a 40-yard strike and were going in to score and fumbled on the 2. It was going to be an easy score and we fumbled it,” Wright said. “ It should have been 7-6 at that point and that might have made it a little different game.”
Taylorsville got another break when they fumbled on their own 10 but picked up the ball and scored on a 10-yard run. The PAT failed and the Tartars led 12-0. Taylorsville added a 53-yard touchdown pass and led 18-0 at the half.
French Camp got the ball to start the second half and put together a good scoring drive and scored on a 1-yard touchdown run by Silas Hodge. The PAT failed and Taylorsville led 18-6.
“I came in and told them they were playing hard and doing a lot of things right, we just weren’t playing very smart,” Wright said. “Big plays were really the difference. I told them that I thought we were good enough to power the ball at them. We got the ball in the second half and drove it 80 yards punched it in. It’s 18-6 halfway through the third and we are feeling great.”
But Taylorsville got its running game going as they popped a 35-yard run. The try for two failed and the Tartars led 24-6.
Taylorsville added a 50-yard touchdown run in the fourth and kicked the PAT to go up 31-6.
The Panthers finished with a 6-yard touchdown run by Hodge and Rob Surrette kicked the PAT for the final margin of 31-13.
“I felt like up front was our weakness all year, but they had a good game. I was proud of how they played. At this point in the year, you have to play every game like it’s a state championship game. We had too many mistakes to win that game,” Wright said. “I felt like we worked hard, we just lacked some on the smarts side. At this stage of the game, you have to do it right. We were really hoping we would have our best game at the right time but did what we have been doing all year and mistakes cost us.”
The Panthers had 237 yards rushing and 49 passing for 286 yards of total offense. Hodge led the offense with 141 yards rushing on 17 carries and two TDs. Ethan Wright had 42 yards rushing on 10 carries while Macon Bentley had 39 yards rushing on two carries. Perry was 8-of-11 passing for 49 yards. Bentley had six catches for 11 yards while Wright had six catches for 11 yards.
On defense, Landon Rushing led the Panthers with 16 tackles while Ethan Wright had 13 tackles. Rob Surrette had nine tackles while Wesley Vowell had eight tackles. Perry had six tackles while Javon Hood had four stops. Silas Hodge and Bradley McCoy had three tackles while Bentley and Avery Summers each had two tackles. Bentley also had an interception.
