After beating J.Z. George 47-34 on Friday night Eupora improved to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in Class 2A, Region 2 with a chance to clinch the No. 2 seed in the district with a win this Friday night. Standing in their way is arch rival East Webster (2-4, 0-2 Region 2) who hasn’t played for the last three weeks after dealing with a shutdown of the program due to COVID-19 contact tracing. Edwards said that he believes his team could have an advantage in the fact that they’ve continued to play, but he also knows that the Wolverines will be ready to get back on the field. “It’s a fun thing. It’s a big rivalry,” Edwards said of the game. “For that third season (the playoffs), winning that game really helps us and gives us a home playoff game. We know that they’re well-coached and have good players coming. It’s tough to miss three weeks conditioning wise because there’s nothing like game reps so that might be something that hurts them. But we just have to come out and handle our business and let the cards fall where they may.” For the Wolverines, they won’t need any extra motivation this week. For starters, it’s arch-rival Eupora on the other sidelines. The Eagles have long been the biggest nemesis for EWHS and vice versa and every win that one has over the other is sweet. On the other hand, the Wolverines are trying to make the playoffs and with forfeit losses to Calhoun City and J.Z. George they haven’t had a chance to clinch their spot. Ron Price said his team is itching to get their shot again and it couldn’t come at a better time than rivalry week. “When it comes down to it, it’s going to be the Maroon Bowl. It’s Eupora vs. East Webster and you can push all the records to the side,” Price said. “We’re going to get their best shot and it seems like they’re coming together offensively. No matter what, Eupora is going to give East Webster its best shot and I hope East Webster will do the same thing. We’re happy to get this game back at East Webster and we want to do the best thing that we can.” There haven’t been very many games this season where the Eupora Eagles have found themselves in the middle of an offensive shootout, but that was certainly the case last Friday night. Eupora got a big lead early against the J.Z. George Jaguars but had to stave off the visitors on a couple of occasions in what was otherwise a comfortable 47-34 win. It was undoubtedly the Eagles’ best offensive performance of the season to date. “I thought offense stepped up. We were able to run the ball and throw the ball some,” head coach Stephen Edwards said. “Hats off to JZ George for the game plan that they had. They’ve got some good kids on that side of the ball, but I thought that’s probably the best we’ve played all year.” It was a well-balanced attack for a Eupora team that has pretty much exclusively been running the ball well this year. Ty Murphy was 7-for-17 passing for a career-high 136 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. It was a career high for passing yards for Murphy and just the second 100-yard game of his young career. Make no mistake, he was still running. Murphy rushed 19 times for 166 yards and a touchdown. Five different Eagles got into the end zone on the ground as Orlandes Gray also had a strong night with 11 carries for 60 yards and a score. Tyjuan Hughes finished with four catches for 68 yards and a touchdown receiving. It looked early on as if the Eagles would be blowing the Jags away. Eupora scored three touchdowns within the first 6 minutes of the game as Murphy capitalized off of a defensive fumble recovery by throwing a 30-yard touchdown pass to Hughes. Jay Stevenson got a 5-yard score shortly after that and then Murphy scored on a 47-yard run to make it 21-0 with 6 minutes left in the quarter. The Jags answered with two touchdowns of their own in the second quarter to cut the lead to nine points, but Eupora pushed it back out when Tra McComb scored on an 11-yard scamper to give the team a 34-12 advantage at the half. Leading 34-20 heading into the fourth quarter, Eupora got Hughes in the end zone from 5 yards away early in the frame to push the lead back out to three scores. They scored again on Gray’s 17-yard touchdown with 3 minutes left to make sure to put the visitors away for good. A late score by JZ George was academic as the Eagles took the win by 13 points.
