DURANT – All Williams-Sullivan coach Rodney Roundtree could do in the end was smile, despite the fact that his young football team had just lost a heartbreaking 8-2 decision to visiting Newton.
“We’ve got a really young group of kids who are learning how to play football,” Roundtree said after the game. “I hope they are able to take a loss like this. I thought they played really hard, we just had too many errors. But I think this is something we can build on.”
Newton improves to 1-0 on the season and will host Wilkinson County next week while Williams-Sullivan will travel to cross-town rival Durant.
It was a contest in which both teams struggled on offense and with penalties. Newton had just 112 yards of total offense, 84 yards in penalties and five turnovers. Williams-Sullivan on the other had only 72 yards of total offense, 124 yards in penalties and three interceptions.
“It certainly wasn’t pretty,” first-year Newton coach James Johnson said.
“As a matter of fact, that’s about the ugliest game I’ve ever been involved in. But it’s a win and I’ll take it. I was proud of our kids. They fought hard and never gave up. And I don’t care how you do it, it’s always good to come away with a victory. We’ve just got a lot of areas we have to improve in.”
Williams-Sullivan took the lead at the end of the first quarter when the Yellowjacket defense tackled Newton’s Eric Brown in the end zone for a safety.
“I thought we did a good job on defense,” Roundtree said. “We have up a couple of big plays but contained them for the most part. It seemed like we were in their backfield all night long and we will only get better over there.”
Newton trailed for most of the contest after giving up a safety with 29 seconds left in the first quarter. Newton had five turnovers including four fumbles and an interception in the contest and struggled to get their new offense going.
“We had trouble with snaps all pre-season with snaps and fumbles,” Johnson said. “I think if we can eliminate the penalties and fumbles, we’ll be OK on offense. We’ve still got a long way to go over there. We’ve got to find out who we can depend on and get better on the line.”
But perhaps the story of the contest for Newton was its defense which held Williams-Sullivan out of the end zone all night. As a matter of fact, Newton gave Williams-Sullivan the ball inside their 20-yard line three different times without yielding a score.
“We had our chances on offense and just couldn’t convert,” Roundtree said.
“If we score the times they gave it to us inside their 20, we easily win that game. We’ve got to take better advantage of our opportunities when we get them.”
The Tigers scored their only touchdown of the night midway through the fourth quarter. After a punt, Newton got the football with about six minutes left in the game at the Williams-Sullivan 37.
From there it took only two plays for Newton to find the end zone as Hakeem Wright broke loose on a 35-yard run, scoring with 5:08 left in the game. Wright also scored the two-point conversion for an 8-2 lead.
Williams-Sullivan got to the Newton 31 and faced a fourth-and-one before being stuffed by Newton’s Tony Jones and Drexil Jones. The Tigers seemed like they were going to run the clock out before another fumble gave the Yellowjackets another shot at the end zone. But Devontae Gardner’s second interception of the game on the Williams-Sullivan 8-yard line with 14.5 seconds left sealed the win.
Wright led the Newton offense with 73 yards rushing on seven carries.
Javotne Gardner led Williams-Sullivan with 27 yards rushing and was 7-of-33 passing for 85 yards passing but threw three interceptions. The Yellowjackets were penalized 20 times for 124 yards.
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