Madison Shannon Palmer High School dominated its scrimmage with a 48-0 win at Ashland High School in Oxford.
Delta Academy fell to North Sunflower in their season opener and Tunica Academy saw their game canceled and they were scheduled to play at West Memphis on Friday.
Madison Palmer's scrimmage lasted the same amount of time as two quarters in a regular football game.
Dragons coach Billy Fields acknowledged Ashland was a Class 1A school and the competition will be stronger throughout the season.
Madison Shannon Palmer is at North Panola at 7 p.m. Friday.
“It’s not like folks we’re going to be facing in our conference,” Fields said. “We’ve got North Panola Friday and that’s a rival game. I don’t know what they’ve got.”
Fields did say it was important for his team to go against another school.
“We needed that for conditioning,” Fields said.
“The two quarters for them seemed like four quarters because of conditioning.”
Xavier Valentine returned an interception 60 yards for a touchdown, Latreveon Wilborn and Quintavieon Davis scored twice each and Rodney Tribble scored once.
The Dragons have had more athletes come out in recent weeks, but they will still be relying heavily on the seniors.
“We’ve got about 28 players now,” Fields said. “Really, eight of them, it’s their first time playing football and we can’t play them so we’ve got about 20. But we’ve got some seniors.”
Delta falls N. Sunflower
Lightning caused Delta Academy’s football season opener to start an hour and a half late Friday night.
The game started at 8:30 p.m. and lasted until after midnight as the Raiders lost 54-40 at home against North Sunflower Academy.
“At the end of the day, the depth that they had made them outlast us,” said Raiders coach Wesley Harris. “We started gasping right around halftime. We never got our feet back underneath us for the rest of the game. They had some good players. They’ve got some good athletes.”
Harris said North Sunflower Academy will likely go deep into the playoffs. He added Delta Academy matched North Sunflower’s athletic ability and intensity until halftime.
“It was pretty much a rout,” Harris said. “Like I said, they’re a good team.”
Quarterback Ethan Moore threw for four touchdown passes and ran for one. His twin brother Gabriel Moore had more than 200 receiving yards and four touchdown receptions.
Caden Cote led the way on defense.
“I thought the effort was there, but the stamina was not,” Harris said. First quarter, I felt like we handled them fine. They hadn’t done anything we didn’t expect them to do.
“When you get tired, you start making mental mistakes. We missed some assignments.”
Harris said Delta Academy tackled poorly at times and did not play the caliber of ball it was capable of.
“Fatigue also played a factor in dropping three passes that would have been touchdowns and getting a holding call late in the game that got a touchdown called back,” Harris said.
Delta Academy is at Sharkey Issaquena Academy in Rolling Fork at 7 p.m. Friday.
Tunica Academy
Tunica Academy’s season opener cancelled, but the Blue Devils were scheduled to play at West Memphis Christian School at 7 p.m. Friday.
Details of that game will be in this week's Clarksdale Press Register.
