The French Camp Panthers dropped a second straight contest last week.
Eupora jumped out to a 24-0 lead and withstood a French Camp charge and pulled away late to take a 42-14 win.
French Camp falls to 0-2 on the season and will travel to Starkville Academy this week to take on the 3-1 Volunteers.
For head coach Nathan Wright, it was too many mistakes and too much of an early deficit to come back from.
“We got down early and just never got back close enough,” Wright said. “We made too many mental mistake and had too many breakdowns. We did some great things and then would do some foolish things and shoot ourselves in the foot. We just have to find a way to stop making so many mental blunders. We are beating ourselves right now. It kind of got away from us at the end. But we were down 24-0 and cut it to 24-12 and we had the ball to start the fourth quarter and had some bad snaps that really hurt us. Even with that, I thought our center was much better than he was last week. If we can eliminate those mistakes, I think we will be OK.”
The Eagles dominated the early action as they jumped out to a 24-0 lead. The Eagles scored on a 23-yard rum from Ty Murphy and got the two-point conversion with 10:38 left in the first to go up 8-0.
Their second score came early in the second as Murphy hit Mark Pittman on a 34-yard pass play. The Eagles got the two-point conversion and led 16-0.
Just a few minutes later, Jessie Sudduth scored on a 5-yard run and caught the two-point conversion to take a 24-0 lead.
“We looked up and it was 24-0,” Wright said. “We had some things that didn’t go our way. We had some breakdowns on defense and had a hard time getting lined up. We got cracked twice on that opening drive and it didn’t get calls and both of those went for 20 yards or more. We weren’t very sound those first few drives and were out of place and those two non-calls hurt us.”
But the Panthers responded with a lengthy drive and scored with eight seconds left in the half when Ethan Wright hit Avery Summers on a 7-yard touchdown pass. The Panthers missed the try for two and trailed 24-6 at the half.
The Panthers got the ball to start the second half and again marched down the field and scored with 8:22 left in the third as Ethan Wright scored on a 12-yard run. The PAT failed and the Panthers cut the margin to 24-12.
“We got the ball to start the second half and went down and punched it in and had all of the momentum,” Wright said. “I was proud that our kids didn’t just lay down and quit. I was preaching to them that they have to trust each other and and that this is a work in progress. But they didn’t just quit, they kept on battling.”
But then the Panthers self imploded with a safety to make the score 26-12 with 11:46 left in the fourth. The Eagles punched in another score and extended the lead to 33-12 with 3:54 left in the game.
Another bad snap gave the Eagles a second safety with 2:00 left in the game to up the lead to 35-12. Tabb Powell then ran the ensuing kick back for Eupora for the final margin of 42-14.
Eupora had 214 yards rushing and 106 passing for 322 total yards of offense.
The Panthers had 248 yards rushing and 69 passing. Ethan Wright was 10-of-17 for 69 yards with one TD and also rushed for 102 yards on 17 carries. Silas Hodge had 142 yards rushing on 19 carries. Avery Summers had five catches for 36 yards while Noah Dew had three catches for 26 yards.
Wright led the defense with 12 tackles while Hodge had nine tackles. Benjamin Wright and Max Bronson each had seven tackles while T.J. Pierce had five tackles. Summers had four tackles while Logan Wright and Casey Shurden each had three tackles.
This week’s game
The Panthers will go on the road this week and take on Starkville Academy.
The Volunteers are 3-1 on the season. Their lone loss was a 17-14 overtime loss to Jackson Academy. They have wins over Lamar (24-22) and Trinity Collegiate (25-20) and Leake Academy (39-7).
“They are playing really well,” Wright said. “They are well coached and do things the right way and that’s one of the reasons we have them on the schedule. They will be a tough draw for us.”
Last year, Starkville won 28-7.
