Through each passing week in the playoffs, competition is going to get more fierce and blowout wins are sure to fade.
Louisville has had hardly any resistance on its way to the Class 4A north state title, but coach Tyrone Shorter knew that Friday night was going to be a war. Against the Houston Hilltoppers, LHS got one of the fights of the season and the will of the Wildcats was going to be tested.
When crunch time came one team played as if they had been there before and that was LHS. Trailing by a score in the fourth quarter, the Wildcats scored two touchdowns in a matter of seconds, and the defense came through late for a 31-21 win to punch LHS’ ticket to Hattiesburg and the 4A state championship.
“I feel good about how they performed. I don’t think we played our best, but we played well enough to get the win,” Shorter said of his team. “I don’t know if our guys were too amped up or whatever, but we made some careless mistakes we haven’t made all year. It’s all about surviving and moving on in the playoffs. You’ve got to win that tough, ugly one in the playoffs, and we did that.”
Like has been the case all season, the LHS defense made plays all night. The team gave up three touchdowns, but the unit also had game changing plays to get the win. There were three interceptions coming from Laterrious Haynes, Jacari Owens, and Caden Thompkins, and Kendon Sanders forced a key fumble to set up the final score in the fourth quarter.
LHS had 9.0 tackles for loss in the game and 2.0 sacks, and Gabriel Moore led the team with 11 tackles and 2.0 TFL.
On offense, things weren’t easy against the Hilltopper defense. LHS had a solid game from senior quarterback Keyarrion Jackson with his 10-of-18 passing night for 131 yards and an interception. Jackson had 11 carries and 36 yards with a touchdown as his team struggled to get a running game going with just 52 yards on the ground and 2.3 yards a carry. Jykevious Goss had five catches for 53 yards.
The chess match between the two started with the Hilltoppers drawing first blood with a touchdown with 3:04 remaining in the first quarter. LHS would respond as Kenneth Hill immediately took a kick back 62 yards to get inside the 10-yard line. From there, Jackson finished off the drive with a score, and it was 7-7 heading to the second quarter.
Tied at 14 at the start of the second half, LHS got its first lead of the game on a field goal, and it was 17-14 going to the fourth quarter. Houston got the lead back early in the fourth, but Kendon Sanders would punch it in from 3 yards away to take a 24-21 lead with 6:17 left. Just a couple of plays later, the game changed drastically as LHS forced a fumble and got in the end zone suddenly, pushing that lead out to 31-21. The defense would hold the rest of the way and get back to the state title game.
Shorter would much rather play an extremely clean game that was absent of any drama but getting his team in a situation to overcome adversity was the next best thing. LHS hasn’t been in too many close ballgames since the first three games of the season when it had to battle against West Point and Starkville, and the coach never knows what his team will encounter in the State Championship. That experience will be beneficial.
“I told them after the game that there were several times in that ballgame that we had to face adversity, and we pulled through it. It showed me a lot of grit from them, and they didn’t hang their heads. A couple of weeks ago against Caledonia, we fell behind and came back. We settled down on Friday night and started playing football,” Shorter said.
“I learned about my team throughout the year that they’re not going to quit, and they’re going to fight through mistakes. We bounce back and that’s what it takes.”
Louisville has had an incredible season to this point. The Wildcats are 13-1 with 10-straight wins, and the only loss came to the North State champions of 6A, Starkville, by one point two months ago. This has a chance to be one of the great LHS seasons in school history, but there’s one game left to go.
The Wildcats go to Hattiesburg this weekend for a showdown with another 13-1 team in Mendenhall. The Tigers have had an even longer streak of wins with 12-straight victories after dropping their only game of the season against Columbia in week one. LHS has never lost a state championship game, sitting at 10-0 all-time, and the Wildcats have a chance to equal West Point and South Panola for the most titles in Mississippi history with 11.
“Coach (Chuckie) Allen and his coaching staff have done a great job. They’re just like us – on film you see a lot of athletes and a lot of speed. They kind of mirror us a little,” Shorter said of Mendenhall. “We’ve got to go through this ballgame and not allow the stage to be too big. Emotions are going to be high, but emotions don’t win ball games. As long as we execute and play our game, we’re going to be in good shape.”
Saturday’s game inside M.M. Roberts Stadium, home of Southern Mississippi, in Hattiesburg is set for 11 a.m., and the game can be seen only on the NFHS Network by subscription.
