With Oak Grove’s top two wide receivers, senior Kevin Barnett and junior Brandon Hayes, out due to injuries, the Warriors took a ‘next man up mentality’ in their 39-7 win over George County Friday night.
The Warriors had no issue putting points up on George County, as they took a 32-0 lead at halftime. Senior quarterback John Rhys Plumlee led the way for the Warriors with his arm and legs in the win, and he scored the first two touchdowns off 34- and 10-yard touchdown runs. Despite the loss of Plumlee’s top two targets, he had no issues finding wide receivers as he connected with eight different receivers while completing 13-for-22 passes for 265 yards and three touchdowns.
“We’ve had some young guys really step up for us, Jordan Coleman and Tavion Smith,” Plumlee said. “These guys are young guys who really didn’t at the beginning of the season expect to see much time. We kind of always talked about when one goes down, one is going to be able to step up. These guys have done a really good job of being in practice everyday and really locking in and getting the stuff and getting our schemes and such. So, when they got their time to shine, they did. They have handled it well and so it kind of made it easy on our part.”
Plumlee’s top two targets of the night were Smith, who had three catches for 69 yards and a touchdown, and senior Jarius Reimonenq, who just last week learned he would play more at wide receiver, finished with three catches for 67 yards.
“When defensive players play offense they know a whole lot more usually than the offensive players know about the defense,” Plumlee said. “And so Jarius, with him being a very good DB, knows how to run routes very well to put DBs in bad positions, which makes him more open and easier on me. He does a really good job at that.”
Oak Grove coach Drew Causey explained it is the game plan to involve more two-way players as the season progresses.
“[Reimonenq is] a guy that’s going to play both ways,” Casey said. “We have some other guys who are going to start doing that in the coming weeks. We are not going into a game with some of our best players on the sideline when we could be using them for offense as well. It’s just our game plan going forward.”
Reimonenq proved to be a player who should not have been left on the sideline on offense. He handled most of the punt returns – almost returning one for a touchdown before a holding called it back – and still consistently put the Warriors in adequate field position while also having an interception. The focus for the Warriors and Reimonenq has been to keep the younger receivers motivated despite the losses of Hayes and Barnett, as well as leading by example.
“They were a real big part of our team. They will be missed,” Reimonenq said. “We can’t let that one injury or two injuries define how good we are. I feel like I’m going to give it everything I’ve got. And when young guys are looking up to someone who is giving everything they’ve got, it makes them want to go harder.”
Looking ahead, the Warriors will play rival Petal Friday but the overall focus was to not look ahead and adjust the issues the team had in the loss from Hattiesburg.
“We’re coming off getting beat on our home field. In the first district game, you usually want to start 1-0,” Causey said. “If you start off 0-1, especially in our region, it’s extremely difficult. They were locked in all week and I was really proud of them.”
