CALHOUN CITY — The Charleston High School Tigers defeated the Calhoun City Wildcats 24-14 in a second-round North 2A playoff game here Friday night.
Charleston improved to 9-3 and ended Calhoun City’s season with a record of 6-6.
Next up for the Tigers in the quarterfinals round are the 7-5 Choctaw County Chargers of Ackerman, who on Friday brought Leflore County’s campaign to a close with a 33-0 win at Itta Bena. (Earlier in the season, Leflore County defeated Charleston 20-14.)
Like Charleston does to hone its skills, Choctaw County played up in class during the early part of the season, starting 2-4 after losing two games to Class 4A and two to Class 3A teams. They also defeated a pair of 4A squads.
Down the home stretch of the regular season, the Chargers went 3-1, their only loss coming at Eupora.
Charleston head coach LaDon Taylor said Choctaw County brings “a big bunch of kids who are well-coached.”
The Chargers rise and fall on the play of senior running back Antonio Kennedy, listed at 6-1, 217 pounds on the Choctaw roster but who Taylor said on film appears to be more in the range of 6-3, 250.
“He is a really big running back. Huge,” the Charleston coach noted.
Taylor said Kennedy reminds him of Channing Ward, the former Aberdeen High School running back who battled the Tigers over a decade ago.
“I told the coaches we were going to have to ‘Channing Ward him,’” Taylor said of how they need to defend Kennedy, who averages over 7 yards per carry.
“When we played Channing Ward, we had to emphasize that it was going to be gang tackling all night. It couldn’t be one guy. It had to be four or five people tackling him,” Taylor explained.
The Tigers’ run defense has been stout this season.
Choctaw County also has a freshman quarterback, K.J. Cork, who has passed for over 1,000 yards and run for another 300, as well as a top wide receiver prospect in 6-3, 175-pound sophomore Caleb Cunningham, whom Taylor sees as another big threat.
“He is someone who, along with trying to stack the box to slow the run down, we can’t just leave one guy out there on him,” the coach noted. “He is a big talent. If you are a four- or five-star like Cunningham is, that’s pretty saucy right there.”
Taylor said he hopes Charleston fans will turn out in large numbers Friday night, with a trip to the North 2A championship on the line.
“Come out and support the kids,” he said.
The winner Friday night will advance to the north half game Nov. 25 to face the victor of this week’s 11-2 Eupora at 9-2 Northside contest.
Taylor said he is not looking that far ahead, but he is savoring the ride thus far.
“We’re glad to be moving on,” he noted. “At this point of the year, it’s survive and advance. There are a lot of people who would like to still be practicing this week, so we are blessed to still be practicing and to have an opportunity for another round.”
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Charleston’s trip to Calhoun City last week did not go as planned early on.
“We came out not playing at the top of our game,” said Taylor, who noted that several starters had just battled the flu and another recently diagnosed with it played anyway.
Punter and 6-3, 180-pound senior wide receiver Terrance Marco was out altogether.
The illness among some key starters had an impact, the coach noted.
“I know that had something to do with it,” said Taylor. “We came out a little flat.”
With Marco out, CHS opened the game kicking off, but a subpar boot gave Calhoun City the ball near midfield and they scored on a 15-yard run with 7:40 in the first quarter. The two-point conversion run was successful.
The Tigers responded quickly when on the ensuing kickoff, return man Corterrius Johnson found a seam and blew past would-be tacklers en route to a 65-yard kick return for a touchdown at 7:23. Quentin Carter ran in the two-pointer and the game was knotted at 8 all.
CHS head coach LaDon Taylor (Photo by Kelly Paris)
“Corterrius Johnson made a huge play and just decided we weren’t going to play any offense right then,” said Taylor. “We were just going to go ahead and score to tie it up.”
However, the Wildcats would take the lead again on a 25-yard TD run with 3:11 in the second act. The conversion failed, but the home team led 14-8 at halftime.
“We had a heart-to-heart at halftime, and we came out and played better in the second half,” said Taylor. “It was good enough to win, but there still were some things that we have to clean up if we’re going to continue to advance.”
In addition to executing better, Taylor said the coaching staff made some defensive adjustments.
“There were a few things that were giving us problems, and we had to adjust something ... to give us a better chance to be able to slow it down or stop it,” he noted.
As it turned out, Charleston hit the brakes on the Calhoun City offense, shutting them out in the final two quarters.
The Tigers scored twice more, first on a Rod O’bannon 4-yard TD run and a two-point conversion pass by Devon Olive to Dre Riley that gave the visitors their first lead, 16-14, with 2:08 remaining in the third period.
In the fourth, with just 54 seconds left on the clock, Carter removed all doubt by capping a Charleston drive with a 14-yard TD run. Olive passed to Omar Wilson for the conversion.
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Statistically, O’bannon completed 7-of-10 passes for 75 yards. Olive connected on one of two targets for 10.
O’bannon also led the run game with 11 carries for 51 yards. Marcus Flowers had 10 totes for 49 yards, Carter six for 20 and Johnson seven for 2 yards.
Riley led with five receptions for 63 yards. Wilson had two catches for 26 yards.
Riley tallied 134 all-purpose yards, with receptions totaling 63 yards, a kick return for 15, a punt return for 7 and two interception returns that netted 54 yards.
Defensively, Montra Sanford and Latese Edwards led the pack with six individual tackles and two assists apiece.
Riley had five solo stops and one assist; Brandon Henderson added four individual tackles and one interception; Timothy Kirk Jr. had three solos; and C.J. Edwards tallied two solos and one assist. K.K. Brown notched one individual stop and two assists. Quinterrius Goliday had one solo and one assist, while O’bannon and Carter had one individual stop each.
Both Goliday and Montra Sanford had a QB sack.
An earlier version of this story misstated the prospective location of a Charleston-Eupora north half championship meeting. The two teams will play Nov. 25 in Charleston.
