Sa vs. Lamar: Week 1
Vols Drop Season Opener
MERIDIAN - Starkville Academy escaped with a pair of thrilling wins over Lamar School the previous two seasons. Those two games were decided by a combined five points, with one being settled on a field goal in overtime and the other after the Vols denied a late two-point conversion by the Raiders.
There was no such late-game drama in Friday night’s season opener for both teams here at Grey Cobb Field.
Lamar scored on its opening possession and never looked back, cruising to a 27-7 victory over Starkville Academy. The Raiders, led by a staunch, hard-hitting defense and a balanced offense, led 7-0 after the first quarter, 13-0 at halftime, and 20-7 through three quarters en route to their first win over the Vols since the 2020 season.
It was a dominant performance from start to finish by Lamar, which out-gained Starkville Academy 378-169 in total yards. The Raiders’ experience advantage over the Vols played a pivotal role in the outcome, as did the addition of a handful of transfers added to the Lamar roster in the off-season.
“The great thing now is we have film on ourselves,” SA coach Chase Nicholson said. “We’re going to start looking at ourselves . . . we’ll go back to the drawing board again after that and figure out who we are as a team, and what we need to do. We haven’t quite been able to put a finger on what we really are. After a game like this, now we can identify who we are trying to be.
“We learned tonight that we have a lot of dudes who like to fight and play football,” he continued. “We’ve got an aggressive defense, and we’ve got an offense that has big play potential. We’ve just got to put it all together.”
A pre-game rain thankfully somewhat cooled off the sweltering temperatures that have been prevalent in Mississippi throughout the summer months. The Lamar defense brought plenty of heat, however, limiting SA’s offense to just 169 total yards – 61 rushing, 108 passing – and nine first downs. The Vols managed only 62 yards and three first downs in the first half.
Meanwhile, Lamar’s offense was boosted by a big night from running back Ashton Jones (30 carries, 162 yards, 2 TDs), complementing the 1-2 aerial punch of quarterback Wyatt Bond (13-of-21, 154 yards) and wideout Jalin Trotter (5 catches, 51 yards). It was Trotter who hauled in a 26-yard touchdown pass from Bond on the 11th play of the game that gave the Raiders a lead they would never relinquish.
The 4th-and-13 play came less than four minutes into the game, capping a 76-yard drive and setting the tone for the evening. Bond, a Jones CC commit, lofted the ball toward the back of the end zone on the fourth and long and Trotter jumped up and came down with the pass against one-on-one coverage for the score.
Jones scored on a 1-yard run with 7:28 remaining in the second quarter to push the lead to 13-0, and later scored on a 6-yard run early in the third quarter to stake Lamar to a 20-0 lead. The latter score came six plays after SA failed to cleanly field a squib kick by the Raiders to open the second half. That was one of two turnovers by the Vols. The other came in the red zone, halting a potential scoring drive that could’ve cut into what was at the time a 13-0 deficit.
SA quarterback Luke McKenzie also had a 57-yard touchdown run waved off by a holding penalty early in the third quarter, one play after Jones’ second score. Lamar’s Khari Towner capped put the finishing touches on Lamar’s 20-point victory with a 11-yard touchdown run in the waning seconds of the third quarter.
“We played hard and we made some mistakes,” Nicholson said. “We’ve got to not make those mistakes. We’ve got to keep getting better. There were several plays along the way that could’ve switched the momentum, or that put us in a bad position, or that we wished we had back.”
SA’s only score came courtesy of a 32-yard touchdown by Luke Johnson with 3:43 remaining in the third quarter. Johnson, a 1,000-yard rusher a year ago, somehow eluded several would-be tacklers behind the line of scrimmage, breaking a few tackles along the way, before bouncing to the outside and scampering down the sideline. Johnson’s scoring run came four plays after SA recovered a fumble at the Lamar 44-yard line, the Raiders’ lone turnover.
“We had some good moments, we had some good plays,” Nicholson said. “It’s a matter of stringing those together and cutting down on the bad ones.”
SA returns to action next Friday night when it hosts Chambers (AL.) in the home opener. It will mark the season opener for the Rebels, who went 12-1 and won the Alabama Independent School Association Class 2A state championship last season.
