Philadelphia seeks first win at Raymond
The Philadelphia Tornadoes will look to get on the winning track Friday night when the Tornadoes visit the Raymond Rangers in prep football action.
The Tornadoes put up a good showing in their season-opening 35-14 loss to Meridian High School Friday night. This will be the second week in a row that Philadelphia is playing against a team, not on its schedule. The Tornadoes were scheduled to open against Noxubee County. The Tigers, however, had to cancel because of COVID-19 concerns. The Tornadoes were scheduled to visit Bay Spring this week and the Bulldogs are out with COVID-19. So, they now face Raymond which defeated Newton last week, 28-12.
Philadelphia ended up playing Meridian after Laurel had to cancel.
That put the Tornadoes playing the Wildcats in a Class 2A vs. 6A battle. The Wildcats scored on a 53-yard rush on the third play of the game. They then added another touchdown on a 30-yard pass play to lead 14-0 at the end of the first quarter.
The Tornadoes came back with an 18-play scoring drive that covered 65-yards. Quarterback Marcus Beamon ran 28 yards to put the ball on the Wildcat three-yard line. One play later, Chancellor Greer carried the ball into the end zone for a touchdown. The extra point try failed and the Tornadoes trail 14-6 with 11:20 remaining in the half. That’s how it stood at the half.
Meridian scored early in the third quarter and led 21-6.
The Tornadoes took the kickoff and ran off 13 plays before running out of downs. The teams exchanged possessions until Meridian scored again in the fourth quarter with 7:33 remaining and went up 28-6.
The Tornadoes took over and Beamon connected with Trey Posey on an 83-yard TD pass play. Andrew Carter scored the two-point conversion and Meridian led 28-14 with 5:01 left in the game.
Meridian put its first team back in and scored on the next possession to seal the victory.
“I have mixed feelings but I thought we should have won,” Coach David Frey said. “When we were down 14-6, we certainly were in the position to win.
“They were bigger and probably had more athletic people on the field at one time. I still think it should have been a closer game or we should have one.
“When we have a long scoring drive, we have to cap it off. We had two or three turnovers that hurt us. We missed some open receivers. We missed some. We went over that Sunday.”
Philadelphia did not practice Monday because of the storm but planned to be back at it on Tuesday.