Louisville faced a tough task last Friday as the Wildcats went on the road for a North State Championship, but Tyrone Shorter had no worries.
The coach has been doing this a long time and he knows what to expect from his team based on his preparation. That preparation brought a determined Wildcat team to West Lauderdale and they handled business the Louisville way in a 40-6 blowout that punched yet another ticket to a state championship game.
“We had a great week of practice during Thanksgiving and I knew our guys were ready to play,” Shorter said of his team. “Going into a hostile environment I knew we had to play really well. I reminded our guys that the last time we played at West Lauderdale, we lost a one-point game in double overtime. Our guys were fired up and there was no denying those kids.”
That last road meeting with the Knights was the only game in district play that Shorter has lost as coach of the Wildcats. LHS went to WLHS and dropped a 36-35 ball game in the regular season. The Wildcats eventually fell out in the third round of the playoffs against Caledonia, but they’ve since won 14-straight playoff games.
The latest was no question it was all about LHS. The Wildcat defense was suffocating and the offense put the hammer down on the Knights with a well-balanced attack.
Freshman running back Zaiden Jernigan got the team started with two first half scores as he got in from 6 yards away late in the first quarter and then a 49 yard reception in the second. With a 51-yard pass from Xavier Hunt to Ayden Coleman, it was 20-0 at the break.
In the second half, Korben Sanders kept the foot down as he scored from 2 yards away. The defense got in on the mix on a fumble midway through the third as Corxavier Coleman picked it up and returned it for a score to make it 34-0 heading to the final frame.
After the Knights got their one and only score of the game, Jay Hoskin came in and barreled in for the final touchdown on a 1-yard run.
In one of the more balanced games of the season, the Wildcats racked up 395 total yards of offense. Hunt was 15-of-19 for 207 of those yards and two touchdowns with one interception. Kamron Triplett had five catches for 64 yards and Coleman had the 51-yard reception for the score with Jernigan notching the touchdown catch and run as well.
Hunt also led the way on the ground as the team carries 25 times for 188 yards and the quarterback had seven carries for 73 yards.
Defensively, Sanders led the way with 14 tackles and had 2.0 TFL while Coleman had 10 tackles, 1.0 TFL and the scoop and score. It was the fifth-straight game that the Wildcats had held a team to seven points or less and the seventh time in eight games. This after the Wildcats surrendered an average of 18.3 points per game in the first six games of the year.
“At the beginning of the season, we had a lot of new faces in the secondary. We knew that we were strong up front but we had a brand new secondary,” Shorter said of the defense. “We had to slow things down and simplify things so our guys could play fast in the backend. I credit my coaches – we went in and fixed it. Now they’re playing fast and starting to believe.”
Now, it’s for all the marbles for LHS (13-1).
For the third-straight season and the fourth time under Shorter in six years, the Wildcats are playing for a state championship. Depending on the results of the West Point state title game on Saturday, LHS has a chance to take sole possession of first for the most titles in Mississippi history.
Over the course of the storied history in Louisville, the Wildcats have won 12 state championships with zero losses at the event and they’ve had some special moments transpire in Hattiesburg. On Friday afternoon at 4 p.m., they’ll try to add another trophy to the case against a familiar Poplarville team.
The Wildcats have beaten Poplarville twice before in the state title with a 25-20 win in 2018 and 15-14 in 2020. The Hornets are 12-2 this season and looking for redemption.
“We’ve seen everything. We’ve played a lot of different things that run a lot of different formations so we’re ready for it,” Shorter said. “The challenge with Poplarville is the style of offense they run. It fits them and they do it really well. It’s designed to slow teams like us down that have speed and quickness. It’s about being disciplined, staying home and reading keys. We faced it this year playing Caledonia so it won’t be new to us. We’re down for the challenge.”
