Sa vs. Bayou: Week 5

Miscues Prove Costly For Vols

A packed audience at Mississippi State’s Dudy Noble Field enjoyed the country tunes of singer Hardy on Friday night.

A couple of miles here across town, the genre and vibe was a little different as Vols’ fans at J.E. Logan Field were left singing the blues.

Bayou Academy took advantage of a plethora of Starkville Academy miscues to escape with a 23-21 victory in the MAIS Class 5A District 1 opener for both teams. The Colts sprinted to a 16-0 lead early in the second quarter, then held off a spirited rally by the Vols in the second half to record just their second victory in the last six years in the series.

SA had won four of the last five over Bayou by a combined score of 119-19. The Vols were hoping to make it five of the last six over the Colts. However, four costly turnovers, two special team blunders and a multitude of penalties proved too much to overcame.

“Obviously, we shot ourselves in the foot too many times,” SA coach Chase Nicholson said. “I’ve got to do a better job of making sure that we get better in those areas and continuing to work on them in practice. We work on those things every day. . . we do handoffs, we do snaps, we do punts. But clearly there’s a miscue there somewhere. We’ve got to do a better job of getting better in those areas. I thought the guys played hard and never quit, we’ve just got to clean up some of those mistakes we made.”

SA suffered its first loss at home this season, dropping to 2-3 heading into next week’s game at reigning Class 6A state champion Hartfield Academy. The undefeated Hawks blasted PCS 71-0 Friday.

Bayou improved to 2-3. The Colts entered having scored only 16 points combined in those three losses.

The Colts’ struggling offense got plenty of help from the Vols on this night. Seemingly every time SA turned the ball over, Bayou capitalized. Mitchell Jones’ 31-yard touchdown pass to Case Chacon in the first quarter came four plays after the first of three interceptions thrown by SA. The Colts’ next two points came courtesy of a safety as the deep snap went through the hands of the SA punter, who ran the ball down and kicked it out of the back of his own end zone. Then, Bo Linkous returned the first of his three interceptions 95 yards for a touchdown to make it 16-0 early in the second quarter.

After SA cut the deficit to two, 16-14, midway through the fourth quarter, Bayou answered with a 4-yard touchdown run by Reed Holman. That score was set up by a deep snap that sailed way over the head of the SA punter all the way back to the Vols’ 4-yard line. A low snap that resulted in a

fumble and another interception ended SA’s next two drives before Luke McKenzie connected with Joseph Portera on a 16-yard touchdown pass with :50 seconds left to make it 23-21.

It was too little, too late, however as Bayou recovered the onside kick with ease and ran out the clock to secure its second win of the season and open up district play on a high note. SA was also flagged for nine penalties, including one on a 4th-and-3 play in the fourth quarter that essentially forced Nicholson to punt the ball away after initially showing a fake punt.

SA has fallen behind in each of its first five games, and has been outscored 29-0 in the first quarter. The Vols fell behind 21-0 to Carroll Academy a week ago before scoring 26 unanswered points to rally for a 26-21 victory. Two comebacks in two weeks was too much to ask, though.

SA had hoped to get a boost from the return of McKenzie, who was sidelined the last two weeks with an injury to his throwing shoulder. While he did throw for a pair of touchdown passes – the other was a 14-yarder to Brantley Berkery with just under two minutes remaining before halftime – and rushed for 52 hard-earned yards on 15 carries, he was clearly a tad out of sync.

McKenzie (8-for-20, 106 yards passing) took several hard hits throughout the game, including one on SA’s final drive

that left him favoring his injured shoulder as he emerged from the pile following a one-yard run.

“Obviously, there was some rust there with Luke in his first game back after a couple of weeks off,” Nicholson said. “He had to knock the rust off, and I didn’t do a very good job of helping him knock that rust off.”

There were some bright spots for SA despite the loss. Running back Luke Johnson had 112 yards on 23 carries, and his backfield mate Graham Hancock had a 40-yard touchdown run on the first play of the fourth quarter. Little intercepted a pass to go along with his late touchdown that was set up by his 27-yard catch earlier in the drive.