Fall break began for Ethel High School last Wednesday, prompting the Tiger administration to move the Region 3-1A contest with Montgomery County (0-8, 0-6) up a day for a Thursday night tilt against the Hornets.
For nearly 11 minutes, the Ethel Tiger football team (4-4, 3-2) appeared to be in a “break mode” of sorts after two stalled and penalty-filled drives, but as the first quarter came to a close, everything changed. Tiger running back Sean Williams capped a five-play, 58-yard drive with a three-yard touchdown run and two-point run as well, giving Ethel an 8-0 lead as the first quarter expired. After their initial score, the Hornets could not stop the Tigers.
With 8:18 left in the first half, Tiger quarterback Hayes Wood found D’Ayres Merritt with a 70-yard scoring strike after a two-play drive that lasted all of 52 seconds. Williams ran in the two-point conversion again to increase the Ethel lead to 16-0. Two minutes later Merritt would score again when he picked off an errant Hornet pass and returned it 40 yards for another score, run failed, giving the Tigers a commanding 22-0 lead with 6:12 left in the half. Ethel put the game away three minutes later with its final score of the half when Julius Erving capped a two play, 51-yard drive with a 46-yard touchdown run, Williams two-point run, giving the Tigers a 30-0 halftime lead.
Neither team would score in the third quarter, but Wood quickly found Julius Erving early in the fourth quarter with a 35-yard touchdown pass, Akeem Erving two-point run, giving the Tigers a 38-0 lead with 11:09 remaining. The Tigers extended playing time to reserves in the fourth quarter which allowed the Hornets to mount two drives with one ending in a 20-yard touchdown pass with 8:22 remaining and a 31-yard run with 4:51 remaining pushing the final score to 46-16. The Tigers scored their final touchdown with 5:45 remaining in the contest after freshman running back Tanner Reeves ran one in from 26 yards out to cap the Ethel scoring.
“I’ll be honest with you, as far as tonight (last Thursday) goes, we came out a little bit flat offensively and did not execute in the manner we should have, but we pulled it together about midway through the second quarter,” said Ethel head football coach Hogan Briscoe. “We started running the ball fairly well and our defense started playing a lot better as well. That’s a big win for us and any way you can win it is good for us. We played everybody tonight and had some guys make some catches and even had an eighth grader make a catch.”
The offensive leaders for the Tigers were Wood who was 3-of-3 through the air for 145 yards and three touchdowns and freshman quarterback Akeem Erving who was 2-of-2 through the air for 62 yards. Julius Erving had two carries for 52 yards and a touchdown while catching one ball for 35 yards and another score. Reeves had three carries for 53 yards and a touchdown; Williams had 27 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries; Merritt had one catch for 70 yards and a touchdown; Daquannay Dotson had one catch for 40 yards; Casey Cloninger had one catch for 30 yards; Jace Dean had one catch for 32 yards.
Defensively the Tigers were led by Reeves with 12 tackles, two TFL’s and a sack; Akeem Erving with seven stops; Jacob Stander with six stops; Tykevin Wade with six tackles and Julius Erving and Merritt with an interception each.
“We cannot be satisfied with where we are at this point in the season,” added Briscoe. “We start a three-game season on Friday at McAdams and we need to come out and play the brand of football we’ve been playing.”
McAdams (2-6, 2-3) will host Ethel this Friday night at 7 p.m. in an Attala County clash and a key Region 3-1A matchup.
