After stopping the Itawamba AHS Indians (5-0) on the opening drive of last Friday night’s contest, the Whippets (1-4) found little success afterwards.
The Indians scored first with 2:16 remaining in the opening quarter when quarterback Austin King found Caleb Whittle with a 13-yard scoring strike, giving Itawamba a 6-0 lead after a failed PAT. The Whippets answered the Indian 10-play, 60-yard drive quickly when Stefan Harmon raced 62-yards on the first play from scrimmage of Kosy’s second drive of the game. Kenny Ashmore nailed the PAT, giving the Whippets a 7-6 lead with 1:59 remaining in the first quarter, which would ultimately be their only lead of the contest.
The Indians put together a lengthy 11-play, 78-yard drive that ended with another King to Whittle touchdown pass, this time from 26-yards out, giving Itawamba a 13-7 lead with 8:29 left in the half. Neither team would score before halftime and the homestanding Whippets went into the half down 13-7.
After deferring possession on the opening kickoff, the Whippets were poised to receive the football first in the second half. The Indians short-kicked the football between several Whippets and recovered it on the Kosciusko 35-yard line.
Two plays later, King punched it in from one yard out to push the Indian lead to 20-7 with 11:37 remaining in the quarter.
Itawamba added to its lead once again when King threw his third touchdown of the night on a 30-yard strike to Jaden Smith with 6:00 remaining in the third, increasing the Indian lead to 27-7 over Kosy.
Smith found the end zone once again from the defensive side of the football when he intercepted a Clark Dean pass, his second pick of the night, and ran it in from 86-yards out giving the Indians a 34-7 lead with 3:10 remaining in the contest. Smith would snuff out the next Whippet drive with his third interception, sealing the win for the Indians but not before the Whippets found the end zone one final time when sophomore quarterback Ryan Atkinson found Bobo Miller with a 10-yard touchdown pass, Ashmore kick, to push the final margin to 34-14.
“They just had too many big plays offensively,” said Whippet head coach Chad Peterson. “It’s kind of the same old story we’ve had the last couple of weeks, we play hard but we are giving up big plays and offensively we just never could get the momentum going. We had several opportunities to make some plays but we just didn’t. We just need to go back to the drawing board and do a better job of getting them in the right position and doing the little things, playing more physical and just try to get better at what we do.”
The Whippets were led offensively by Harmon who rushed for 111 yards on five carries with a touchdown; Kadarius Banks with 118 yards on 14 carries and two catches for 22 yards; Miller had two runs for five yards and one catch for 11 yards with a touchdown; Lane Outlaw had one catch for 13 yards; Dean was 5-of-19 through the air for 36 yards with three interceptions and Atkinson was 1-of-2 through the air for 11 yards and a touchdown.
The defensive leaders for Kosciusko were Clint Williams with nine tackles; Stefan Harmon with nine tackles; Kahare Haynes with eight tackles; Tanner Threadgill with seven tackles; Jaquan Williams with six tackles and Devin Foster with four tackles and a fumble recovery.
The Whippets begin Region 4-4A play on Friday night when they host Noxubee County (2-4) at 7 p.m.
