The Sumrall Bobcats got back to their winning ways with a 28-6 win over Forrest County AHS last week, and it locked up a second straight trip to the playoffs. Sumrall had only made seven postseason appearances before the 2017 season, and it’s the first time going for back-to-back years since the 2011-12 seasons.
Sumrall coach Shannon White said he thought his team had a sloppy first half against the Aggies on Friday, but rebounded with a better second half. He gave a lot of credit to FCAHS’ play, but the Bobcats will have to play well the entire game this week against Greene County if they want a win.
The Wildcats have won three straight and seven of the last eight games after a 0-2 start to the season, and they’re coming off probably their best win of the season – a 41-20 win over Lawrence County.
“This last week was their best of the year, so they’ve really improved each week and you can see it,” White said. “They were really, really good against a really good Lawrence County team, so they’re impressive.”
Greene County features a very balanced offense with 249 pass attempts to 295 rushes, and it averages 175 passing yards per game and 125 rushing yards. Junior quarterback Jacob Mitchell has 1,755 passing yards, 16 touchdowns and three interceptions on 69 percent passing.
The high completion percentage could be due to the amount of short screen passes the Wildcats use. They’re known for their screen plays, White says.
“Nobody runs the screens like they do,” White said. They run a lot of screens a lot of different ways, and that’s tough. They’re good at it. They understand how to run screens, and we never see that. We’ll see screens once or twice a game, but we’re going to see screens. It’s just part of the playbook for them. Just like the inside zone, they run the screen.”
Junior Drake Henderson leads the Greene County offense with 603 receiving yards and five touchdowns on 39 receptions, and senior Que Washam is second with 420 yards and three scores on 51 grabs. On the ground, senior Santez Campbell has 983 yards and he’s found pay dirt 14 times on 169 carries. Mitchell has added 89 carries with a 2.2-yard per carry average, but no other player has more than 13 rushing attempts.
It’ll be a big test for the Bobcats defense, but that’s been a strength for the team. Consistently, Sumrall has put up impressive defensive performances all season, and there are multiple reasons why.
“First of all, the coaches have had a great game plan every week, and we do a lot of things defensively based on other teams,” White said. “So we just don’t line up the same way and play the same way. I think we’ve been prepared well and I think we’ve been healthy, too. We’ve managed to keep most of our starters out there every Friday night. We’ve had a few dings here or there. It’s a good group, they’ve been healthy and I think our coaches have done a good job preparing them this week.”
Like the rest of the team, the Wildcats defense has been on a roll, too. Lawrence County’s rushing offense scored 20 points last week, but Greene County shut out FCAHS and allowed Purvis to score only seven points the week before. It runs a 4-3 defense and White believes it’s the biggest defensive front his team has seen all season.
“They do a great job of running to the football and containing big plays,” he said. “They don’t give up big plays and I think that’s what makes them good. The big play results from other teams aren’t on film. You don’t see 20, 30-yard runs or passes.”
