Mistakes and missed opportunities turned what could have been a close first-round Class 2A playoff contest into a one-sided affair.
Coahoma County High School’s (3-9, 3-3) football season ended with a 47-0 loss at Eupora Friday night.
The Red Panthers trailed 21-0 at the end of the first quarter and were unable to recover.
“Tonight, we started off slow,” CCHS coach Mario Lane said. “We had some miscues on special teams that put us behind the 8-ball early. We weren’t able to overcome that early deficit we put ourselves in. We had a couple touchdowns taken off from the board from us. That just kind of killed our morale.”
Senior wide receiver Markevius Phillips long had a long touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Lamont Lee called back on a penalty. Lee ran in a touchdown that was called back on a penalty.
“That caused us to go into the half down 27-0,” Lane said. “We spotted them 21 points in the first six minutes of the game.”
With the two touchdowns, the score could have been anywhere from 27-12 to 27-16 at halftime and CCHS received the opening kickoff of the second half.
Instead, the Red Panthers trailed 27-0 going into the third quarter and Lee threw a pick-6 and the Eagles scooped a fumble recovery for a touchdown.
Phillips has been the leading receiver all season and nothing changed on Friday night,
“Phillips had his regular night,” Lane said. “He had some big plays.”
CCHS did force a couple of punts, but then turned the ball right back over to Eupora.
Lane completed his first year as the Red Panthers head coach and was happy they were able to win the final two regular-season games to advance to the playoffs.
“They stuck with it,” he said. “They stuck with it throughout the season. They were able to win a few games. They were able to play into the postseason. The outcome didn’t quite go the way I wanted to.”
Senior lineman Gedarius Ratliff said CCHS had a good season, but also wished the team could have advanced further in the playoffs.
“I was happy that we made it to the first round, but at the end of the game, I felt sad,” said Ratliff after the loss to Eupora.
Lane felt being able to play a postseason game will benefit CCHS in the coming years.
“Playing somebody like Eupora, somebody that’s used to the postseason, now they see what they have to do to compete with guys on that level,” he said. “If they ever expect to compete, those are the guys they are going to compete against.”
Lane will have his first full offseason to work with his athletes and build a program.
“We’ll take a couple weeks off and then we’ll sit back and reevaluate some things,” he said. “The coaches, we’ll meet and devise an offseason program. These kids play a lot of other sports and right now we’ve got to recruit some kids out of the building and get our numbers up, get some depth, get some linemen, things of that nature.”
