It was a tough week one battle with Gentry for the defending Class 4A state champions of Louisville but Tyrone Shorter is always challenging his players to get better.
Week two should have been a much better showing for the Wildcats as they press towards another state championship but Kemper County was going to be a tough test. The Wildcats took the challenge of their head coach and came out and rolled against Kemper in a 41-7 blowout win.
It pretty much checked all of the boxes that Shorter had going into the ball game and proved that his team was taking a step forward.
“We went into the game and wanted to be balanced on offense. Our guys did a great job,” Shorter said. “I think we had close to 300 yards rushing and I thought we played really well. The starters pitched a shutout and Kemper scored on our second team so it was an all around great game for us.”
It took a blink of an eye before the Wildcats were on the board on Friday night as Jace Hudspeth threw a touchdown pass to Swahili Earby that made it 7-0 with 10 minutes still to go in the first quarter. But things were quiet for LHS the rest of the quarter and they couldn’t put any more points on the board.
It wouldn’t take long for fortunes to change for LHS, however.
The lead went to 14-0 after a few minutes into the second quarter when Emory James had a touchdown run. Less than two minutes later, Hudspeth ran in a touchdown of his own. James would close out the half with his second touchdown run and it was 27-0 just like that.
James capped off his trio if scores in the third quarter when he scored once again. Jacorey Coleman joined in on the fun with a 6-yard score making it 41-0 and clearing the bench for most of the rest of the game.
Kemper County was able to get a touchdown in the third quarter but that’s all they could manage in the game. That was a welcome sign to Shorter as he’s trying to bring along a young defense. It’s made a lot easier when the culture is already in place at LHS for defense to be a way of life.
“Every week we’re getting better and better. We’re starting a lot of young kids and they’re getting better. We tackled better this week and didn’t make too many mistakes. We just want to take it one day at a time,” Shorter said of the defense. “It’s engrained in these kids to play good defense because they’re physical and have a lot of speed. We have to coach them up because they’re natural born, physical kids. It’s getting better and better and that’s all we ask of the kids.”
With two wins down for the Wildcats (2-0), they go up in classification to take on the next opponent. Columbus is hosting the Wildcats on Friday night and the Falcons are already showing signs of progress under coach Joshua Polphus.
After putting up a tough fight but coming up short against Starkville in the opening game of the season 28-0, Columbus got its first win of the season last week against Southaven in a 10-6 win. Shorter sees a team that’s much-improved and hungry for success.
“It’s going to be a tough one. Columbus is 1-1 right now and are big and physical on defense. They’re not the Columbus of the past. They’re a lot better, and the coaching staff is doing a great job with them so we’ve got to be disciplined. I’ve been watching film on them and they’re a whole lot better. I can see that they’re very disciplined and play hard on defense and the offense has more structure to it,” Shorter said.
“Going over there, it’s going to be tough to beat them. Watching them against Starkville, they were in that game they just gave up some big plays.”
