WEBB — Despite a sluggish start to the game, the West Tallahatchie High School Choctaws came away with a 36-0 win over the Coffeeville High School Pirates during homecoming here.
West Tally improved to 5-2. Coffeeville slipped to 2-6.
“We played probably as bad as we’ve played all year in the first half,” said Choctaws head coach Shane Hargett. “We should have been up 36 at halftime, but it was 6-0 at halftime. I attribute that to the fact that it was homecoming, with all the distractions, but mostly we didn’t practice at all last week or the week before.”
Hargett was diagnosed with COVID on the night of the Chocs’ Oct. 2 game at North Panola, and some of the players also developed the illness, the coach explained.
The Choctaws were open last Friday, giving the team extra time to beat the bug.
“We made sure that nobody else would get it, so we just canceled everything since we had an off week. And, it showed. It showed bad,” said Hargett. “We had tons of miscommunication, mishandled snaps and missed assignments. It looked like first game of the season stuff, simply because we hadn’t practiced. And you could tell.”
Jamerrius Johnson flashed the only bright spot in the first half, scoring on about a 55-yard touchdown. The two-point try failed, but the Choctaws led 6-0.
“We came out in the second half after we made adjustments and played a lot better,” noted Hargett.
On the first play of the second half, the Choctaws’ Kelvin Robinson set the tone for the rest of the game when he broke a 70-yard run.
“I thought he scored, but they said he stepped out of bounds at about the 1,” Hargett said.
Cameron Christian capitalized on Robinson’s explosive run by breaking the plane on the next play.
Hargett said Kordell Robinson was among other Choctaws putting points on the board in the third and fourth quarters, exciting the homecoming crowd.
All of West Tally’s touchdowns came on running plays, the coach noted, although complete scoring and game statistics had not been posted on MaxPreps as of late Tuesday night.
“We scored 30 in the second half, but it should have been out of reach before that, Hargett said of the homecoming match. “But, a win’s a win and we’re 1-0 in the district.”
Hargett was referring to the Chocs being 1-0 in Region 4-1A after defeating the Pirates in the region opener.
The Choctaws will hit the road to face region rival French Camp Academy Friday night.
The Panthers will enter the game with a winless 0-8 record, having fallen 44-0 to Leflore County last week.
Hargett, however, said French Camp’s record is deceiving.
“They’re a big football team, and they’re a whole lot better than their record,” he noted. “They’ve played some good football teams.”
In fall break practices this week, Hargett said the Choctaws would be focusing on addressing some of their own shortcomings.
“We’ve got to clean up our stuff and get more polished,” he noted. “We still have a problem with holding. We’ve got to get our feet quicker and eliminate all of those holding calls that are negating big gains. We did that Friday night; that was one of the reasons we only had six points in the first half, just hurting ourselves.”
