By BRET H. MCCORMICK, Journal Sports
Trailing by two points late in the fourth quarter, the Tioga Indians needed their young quarterback to lead a game-winning drive.
Cace Malone took the helm of the Indians’ figurative ship, engineering a nine-play, 74-yard, game-winning touchdown drive that he finished with a 1-yard run with 57 seconds left to give the Indians (6-1, 1-0 in District 2-4A) a 20-16 victory over Franklin Parish (5-2, 1-1).
Malone did most of the damage on the drive with his legs, breaking off runs of 17, 10 and 12 yards to get the Indians into the red zone, and then finding tough yards near the goal line before his game-winning touchdown run.
On third and goal from the 1, the Indians lined up in the T formation with Malone under center, two tight ends and three running backs. Malone took the snap and surged forward while running backs Kenny Ponthier, Josh Loyd and Gunnar Delaney along with tight ends Ryan Reeves and Kaleb Andrus all crashed behind Malone to push him across the goal line.
“It’s big on big – let’s get in,” Tioga coach Kevin Cook said. “That’s old-school football.”
Malone rushed for a career-high 101 yards and two touchdowns, while senior running back Travis Adams added 148 yards and a touchdown on 24 carries for an Indian offense that compiled 262 rushing yards.
Cook said he didn’t ask Malone to do anything different on the final drive, and he was proud of the way his young signal-caller delivered in crunch time.
“He’s a pretty cool customer all the time, so we didn’t give him any special instructions,” Cook said. “Just execute what’s called and do what you’re supposed to do. That’s the kind of kid he is. He doesn’t need a whole lot of pep talking. He just goes out there and does it. That’s what he did on that last drive.”
Tioga led 7-0 after the first quarter on a 3-yard Adams TD run and took a 14-6 lead in the second quarter on Malone’s first touchdown.
Franklin Parish cut the lead to 14-9 at halftime on a 40-yard field goal and then took a 16-14 lead in the third quarter when Dezyrian Ellis found Kenyon Drake for a second touchdown pass.
But the Indians came through when they needed to the most, methodically driving for a game-winning drive and then stopping the Patriots’ attempt to answer in the final minute, setting up a huge road game next week at Neville in a battle for control of District 2-4A.
BUNKIE 58, BUCKEYE 41
Another Herculean effort by Jim Burlew wasn’t enough for Buckeye (4-3, 1-1 District 2-3A) to overcome a superstar performance by Bunkie junior quarterback Dillon Compton.
Compton accounted for seven touchdowns – rushing for a game-high 239 yards and four touchdowns while completing 9 of 14 passes for 144 yards and three TDs – as Bunkie improved to 7-0 and set up a showdown of unbeatens next week against Jena.
“He’s lightning in a bottle,” Buckeye coach Ben McLaughlin said of Compton. “He’s everything that the stats and all his game says he is. He was gonna get his touchdowns, and we knew it. We weren’t trying to stop him the whole game. You’re not gonna stop him the whole game. We were hoping to get four or five stops to help us win a 50 to 40-something game. The defense did that.”
Burlew, Buckeye’s workhorse junior running back, eclipsed the 200-yard mark for the third time this season and went over 1,000 rushing yards for the year by carrying the ball 47 times for 226 yards and three touchdowns.
The first half was a war between the two teams, as Bunkie opened a two-touchdown lead in the second quarter behind Compton TD runs of 51, 65 and 69 yards as well as a 21-yard TD pass to Kyle Johnson.
However, Buckeye rallied to tie the game at 28 after a 26-yard touchdown pass from Adam Brodnax to Aidyn Boone and Burlew’s second TD run.
Compton’s third touchdown pass gave Bunkie a seven-point lead at the half, and Buckeye cut the lead to 35-34 in the third quarter on a 5-yard run by Colt Vercher.
Buckeye had the ball in the red zone later in the quarter with a chance to take the lead, but McLaughlin made what he termed “a bad series of calls” that ended with no points and flipped the momentum of the game.
“I let ‘em down there,” McLaughlin said. “We score right there and go up 42-35 or whatever, and I think we got ‘em. We had ‘em on the ropes.”
Bunkie took control for good on a 60-yard touchdown pass from Compton to Johnson and a 60-yard pick-6 by Ron Patterson that gave Bunkie a 58-34 lead at the end of the third quarter.
RUSTON 48, PINEVILLE 6
Ruston’s tenacious defense held the Rebels (2-5, 0-2 District 2-5A) to 51 yards of offense in a dominating performance. The fourth-ranked Bearcats (7-0, 2-0) pitched a shutout until the game’s final play, when Pineville junior Landon Grimes returned a kickoff for a 75-yard TD.
Sophomore Hy’Keem Mix led the Rebels, who were a combined 2-for-14 on third- and fourth-down conversions, with 30 rushing yards.
Freshman Sam Hartwell, making his first start at quarterback due to a disciplinary issue for the Bearcats’ normal starter, passed for 110 yards and two touchdowns, while junior Jordan Hayes led the Bearcats with 114 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Ruston methodically built a 28-0 halftime lead thanks to Hayes’ TD run, Hartwell’s two passing TDs and a punt return by Aidan Anding. Junior Joshua Brantley threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Joran Parker on the first play of the second half on Brantley’s only snap of the game to give Ruston a 35-0 lead before heading back to the bench and giving way to the Bearcats’ backups.