There wasn’t much to worry about for Tyrone Shorter in the form of a bounce back from his team following a tough loss from the week before.
Earlier this season, the coach saw his team come back from a 2-0 loss to Noxubee County by beating West Point 38-28. After dropping a game a week ago to Starkville, his team answered the bell again. It was a dominant performance from start to finish as Louisville welcomed Shannon and the Wildcats got back in the win column with a 28-8 victory.
“I’m pleased with the way that our kids responded after last Friday night. We wanted to be balanced and we were. That’s what we took out of it,” Shorter said. “I like the way that they’re handling adversity. Sometimes a loss can help your team. We evaluated the film and each position after last week and saw that we just got worn out at the end of the game against Starkville so I liked the way that we responded from that.”
Louisville did most of their work quickly in the first half with a 28-0 lead and the clock ran for most of the second half. Shannon scored eight points in the final quarter but the game was already in hand. The Wildcats (3-2) had 307 yards of offense with the balance that Shorter wanted coming into play as they rushed for 140 yards and passed for 167.
The Wildcats started things off with a bang as they drove the ball right down the field against the Shannon defense and running back Michael Foster finished things off with a 10-yard touchdown for the 7-0 lead with 8:31 left in the first quarter. A defensive stop led to another score just three minutes later as Foster broke off a 29-yard run and made it 14-0 before the Red Raiders could blink.
A third touchdown in the first quarter came just after another stop from the defense as Drea Shumaker hit Dantavius Triplett for an 18-yard touchdown pass that made it 21-0 through a quarter of play and had Shannon wondering what happened.
Shorter wasn’t happy with the mistakes that the team made throughout the game, two of them wiping out touchdown passes in the second quarter. They got back in the scoring column at 3:50 before halftime when Shumaker found Kaleb Mosley for a 48-yard score and it was a 28-0 lead at the half.
The clock ran in the second half and the Red Raiders scored a meaningless touchdown as the Wildcats got the bounce back win they were looking for.
Shumaker finished 11-of-19 for 157 yards and two touchdowns passing on the night with Mosley getting the bulk of it grabbing four passes for 101 yards and a score. Shumaker also rushed nine times for 68 yards and Foster added nine more carries for 66 and those two touchdowns.
Defensively was where Shorter was most proud. The Wildcats allowed just 78 yards of offense with 55 passing yards and just 23 rushing. They also had nine sacks as a team and picked off a pass in the win.
Now the Wildcats get one step closer to starting Class 4A, Region 4 play as they finish off the non-conference portion of their schedule by hosting winless Yazoo City this week. It’s the final tune-up before the games that count begin and Shorter is bringing a relatively healthy group into the game other than wide receiver David Haynes who he said will hopefully be ready next week.
This week is all about execution and the team preparing themselves mentally and physically to be as sharp as they can be for the next couple of months.
“Looking at Yazoo City, they’re big and they have athletes. We just can’t allow them to come in here and us play down. They can slip up on you. We want to take care of business and take care of business early.”
“We’re trying to train their mind and ready for division play. This is the last game before division and we want to come out and play really well,” Shorter said. “We want to eliminate mistakes.
