WEBB — The West Tallahatchie Choctaws proved to be their own worst enemy Friday night, Sept. 8, as they dropped a 44-26 decision to the Coahoma County Red Panthers.
West Tally fell to 1-2 while Coahoma improved to 2-1.
“They couldn’t stop anything we did offensively unless we stopped ourselves, which was frustrating,” lamented West Tally head coach Shane Hargett.
On the other hand, the Choctaws were unable to slow down the Red Panthers.
“We just didn’t play defense,” he said. “We had a lot of blown coverages. We couldn’t stop them. I think they scored in four plays on their first drive.”
On another occasion, Hargett noted, the Choctaws managed a stop and forced Coahoma to punt, only to muff the punt and have the Red Panthers recover the ball.
“Just sloppy football,” he said.
In the fourth quarter, with West Tally trailing just 28-26, the Choctaws were driving deep in Coahoma territory, inside the 10-yard line.
“We run a play, a read-option, and the quarterback fumbles the football, it bounces off the guy in front of him and into the backfield, [Coahoma] picks it up, scoops and scores,” said Hargett. “We were right there fixing to go up on them, and they ended up going up even further on us.”
The coach said the deficit late in the game forced West Tally to “have to throw the ball, get out of our comfort zone a little bit, and we still moved it down the field and then we got down there and threw an interception.”
Issac Day scored twice on touchdown runs of 64 and 35 yards, Lavoriontaye Willis caught a 30-yard TD pass from Day and Roosevelt Phillips scored on a 6-yard run with the two-pointer tacked on by Day.
Hargett said Day tallied 175 rushing yards and Phillips added 35.
— * —
The coach said West Tally has to play “better assignment and responsibility football on defense” and figure out a way, starting with ball security, to have more possessions on offense.
“Time of possession is so far lopsided, it’s hard to do,” Hargett noted. “You’ve got to make every possession count. And we can’t turn the ball over like we did Friday night.”
— * —
This week, the Choctaws travel to Charleston to face cross-county rivals the Tigers in the annual “Battle of the Golden Egg.”
“I’ve seen them on film. They are a good football team, they’ve got some good size and fair speed,” said Hargett. “We have to play flawless football to have a shot. We can do that.”
The Choctaws are facing an extended drought in this series (see the story on Page 1), but Hargett said this week’s game is “definitely winnable” if his team cleans up their errors and plays up to their capabilities.
Kickoff at Tiger Stadium Friday night, Sept. 15, will be at 7.
