Plagued by six turnovers, the Whippets blew three chances in the red zone in the first half alone with two interceptions in the end zone and another on the Neshoba Central 9-yard line and fell to the Rockets 20-16 in the season opener.
“I thought the kids played really hard, played good, we just need to make a few changes to help take care of the mistakes we did have,” said Kosy head coach Chad Peterson. “We turned the ball over six times and you just can’t beat anybody doing that. When you look at the positives, we did have two touchdowns called back with one being a penalty on us and the other being a dead ball penalty on them. We dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone and we threw some picks, but I think the quarterback (Dean) played well and really only had one bad throw as far as we can tell.”
The Whippets scored in the second quarter on a Clark Dean 11-yard throw to Jaquan Williams with 5:54 left and were gifted a safety on a bad snap to the Neshoba punter with 2:50 left in the first quarter.
Neshoba capitalized on two of the Whippet turnovers with a 72-yard run with 4:34 remaining in the half and a 29-yard field goal three minutes later to take a 10-9 lead into the intermission. The Whippets grabbed the lead at 17-16 on a Dean one-yard sneak with no time left in the third, but they would not score again.
Neshoba punched one in from the one-yard line to take the lead 17-16 with 7:52 left in the contest and iced it with a 42-yard field goal with 2:27 left in the fourth quarter. With one last chance, Dean was picked off for the fourth time on the Whippets 45-yard line with 2:27 left ending any chance for a comeback.
The Whippets accumulated 232 yards of total offense while the Rockets had just 192 yards total. The offensive leaders for Kosy were Kenwon Riley with 32 yards on seven carries; Kadarius Banks with 39 yards on seven carries and three catches for 38 yards; Bryce Oakes with 17 yards on three carries and Stefan Harmon with four totes for 23 yards and one catch for 18 yards. Dean was 7-of-15 passing for 99 yards, one touchdown and four interceptions while rushing for yards on four carries with another score while Jaquan Williams had on catch for 18 yards and a touchdown.
The defensive leaders for the Whippets were Clint Williams with 13 tackles with four TFL’s; Ariyan Love with eight tackles; Devin Foster with five stops and one TFL; Kadarius Banks with four stops; Kahare Haynes with four tackles; Tanner Threadgill with three tackles and two TFL’s; Michael Brown with three stops and one TFL; B. J. Johnson with two tackles and two TFL’s; Ashton Greer with five solos; Chris Robinson with one sack; Jordan Selmon with three tackles; Jatavious Herron with four stops and Stefan Harmon with an interception.
“We got a lot of positives out of the game and the main thing is that the kids competed until the end and we still had a chance to win it even with the six turnovers,” concluded Peterson. “We’ve got a lot to build and we just have to go back to work to try to fix it all.”
The Whippets (0-1) host Northeast Lauderdale next Friday night at 7 p.m.
