photo by Hannah Reel

Ferriday’s DeVonante Scott gains yards during the game against Mangham earlier this season. The Trojans are making a habit of coming back in the second half for wins after another fourth quarter comeback last week over Jonesboro-Hodge.

Ferriday gets wins ... just late in game

By Jeff Edwards (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Monday, October 19, 2009

FERRIDAY — The Ferriday Trojans don’t like to do things the easy way.

Of the Trojans’ six victories this season, three have been second-half comebacks, including Friday’s 6-3 victory over Jonesboro-Hodge, which came on a touchdown pass with a minute remaining.

Earlier this season, Ferriday overcame an 18-8 halftime deficit against Vidalia to win 34-24 and one week after that overcame a 10-0 fourth-quarter deficit to post a 16-10 win over Wossman.

“We’ve got the cardiac kids here,” Harrison said of his team. “I think we are starting to realize what it takes to win football games. These guys always find what it takes to win.”

Harrison credits Ferriday’s fourth quarter moxie to the learning experience of last year’s 5-6 season, which included several close losses.

“You can’t teach it,” Harrison said. “You’ve got to let them be battle tested. They’ve got to learn on their own. It’s like throwing somebody in the water, they’ll either sink or swim. Last year we were kind of sinking and this year we’re swimming. And once you learn, it’s like riding a bike, you never forget.”

While the Trojans are living up to the cardiac kids moniker, the Ferriday defense is striving toward an even better nickname and a tradition at Ferriday — JYD.

JYD stands for junkyard dogs, and is part of the fabric of the Ferriday football tradition.

“When I got here (as head coach) I didn’t understand what JYD was for,” Harrison said. “Then I learned the history of it. It means putting the pedal to the metal, flying to the football and making big hits. It’s a commitment to excellence on the defensive side of the ball. This defense is trying to live up to the JYD, and that’s a feat within itself.”

While Ferriday picked up a thrilling victory last Friday to up its record to 6-1, the Natchez Bulldogs got a critical victory to keep their playoff hopes fully alive.

One week after getting spanked by Brandon 44-15, the Bulldogs traveled to Jackson and defeated Jim Hill 25-14 to even their district record at 2-2.

“It was important to get back on the winning track,” Natchez coach Lance Reed said. “Whenever you lose a game, you’re really hungry for a victory. We were real happy to get a victory last Friday.”

Natchez quarterback Javon Washington was a question mark going into the game after bruising his ribs against Brandon, but he played the entire game and threw a touchdown pass in the first half.

“Javon looked fine,” Reed said. “He wanted to go out there and see how it felt. It felt fine for him and he made it through the entire game.”

While Reed was pleased with both the victory and the performance of his quarterback, one thing he wasn’t happy with was the deplorable field conditions.

The game was played in a mud pit, which was almost unplayable, Reed said.

“It might have been the worst field conditions I’ve ever been a part of,” Reed said. “It was pure mud in the middle of the field. It was very horrible. We weren’t very happy about it, but we had to deal with it.”

Another team that had to battle weather and field conditions last weekend was Cathedral.

The Green Wave played their arch-rivals St. Aloysius on Thursday night in a game that was halted 35 minutes late in the third quarter due to a thunderstorm that moved through the area.

The timing of the delay was bad for Cathedral, as the Green Wave had moved the ball to the St. Al 7-yard line using a new Notre Dame box offense that was confusing the Flashes defense.

After the delay, St. Al’s defense rose up and stopped Cathedral on downs, and didn’t allow an offensive touchdown in the game.

“I thought we had the momentum until the lightning struck and delayed the game,” Cathedral coach Craig Beesley said. “That allowed them to regroup and come up with a scheme to stop us. They hadn’t seen that offense all year long and the delay allowed them to come up with a scheme to hold us out of the end zone.”

Cathedral did get on the scoreboard with a 50-yard punt return for a touchdown by Daniel Huffines that tied the game at 7 in the fourth quarter.

But St. Al won the game 10-7 in overtime on a 23-yard field goal by Pierson Waring.

Beesley said the mental aspect of losing to their rivals in overtime will be tough for the Cathedral players to get over.

“The mental side of it is tough for these kids,” Beesley said. “They’ve been looking forward to that game since last year (when St. Al won on a touchdown pass with 17 seconds left). We were hoping to come out with a win, but it just didn’t go our way.”

Beesley hopes his team regroups from the loss better than last year, when they were pounded by Bogue Chitto 44-14 the next week.

“Last year we had a hangover after the St. Al loss and Bogue Chitto jumped on us early,” Beesley said. “We’ve just got to move on from this loss and get ready for Bogue Chitto this week.”

Another team that suffered a tough loss last weekend was the Adams County Christian Rebels.

ACCS fell to District 5-AA opponent Silliman 18-15 in a game the Rebels had a chance to win late.

The Rebels scored with three minutes left to cut the score to 18-15 and then blocked a Silliman punt with 2:06 left to take over at the 45-yard line.

However, the Rebel offense couldn’t drive for the winning score, and Silliman held on downs to take the win.

“The kids played as hard as they could as long as they could,” ACCS coach Paul Hayles said. “It’s one of those rare times where it didn’t help us. They fought hard for four quarters.”

A key play in the game took place right before halftime. The Rebels intercepted a pass and looked as if they had run it back for a touchdown as the first half clock ran out. However, the official ruled the player stepped out of bounds short of the goal line, and the points came off the board.

“We thought we had gotten in, but the official marked it short,” Hayles said. “That’s how the first half ended. We knew we were going to need some help and that’s a big play that went against us.”

But even with the loss, Hayles said he couldn’t be prouder of his players.

“The effort the kids put forth Friday was exceptional,” Hayles said. “We just didn’t get the results we wanted.”