Rebels look to rebound against SA
The Leake Academy Rebels kicked off the regular season last week with a road trip to Class 6A Jackson Academy.
The Rebels might not have come away with the win but left Jackson with the respect of the Jackson Academy fans.
The Raiders pulled away in the second half and withstood a late charge by the Rebels and took a 31-23 win on Friday night at the Brickyard.
Leake falls to 0-1 on the season and will host Starkville Academy on Friday night.
Veteran coach Brian Pickens said it was a typical first game with plenty of good and some things to work on as well.
“I didn’t think we played bad but we didn’t play our best either,” Pickens said. “Their defense is really good and they did a good job at taking away some things we wanted to do on offense. There are a lot of things we can do better on both sides of the football. But a lot of the things we didn’t do well had a lot to do with them as well. Hopefully we can take this loss and learn from it and get a lot better next week. I was proud that our kids never quit. They kept battling back and never gave up and I was proud of that. We just need to clean up those mistakes this week.”
Both teams punted to start the game and the Rebels made the first mistake of the contest when George Wilcox was intercepted in the first quarter. The Raiders converted with a 4-yard run with 6:16 left in the first to take a 7-0 lead.
Leake finally found the scoreboard early in the second quarter when the Rebels went 65 yards in 10 plays, scoring on a 1-yard run by Wilcox with 10:26 left in the half. Matthew Nowell hit the PAT to tie the score at 7-7.
The Rebels put together another long drive in the second half but had to settle for a 20-yard field goal with 4:33 left in the half to take a 10-7 lead.
The Raiders answered with a scoring drive, hitting some big plays, including a 25-yard touchdown run to retake the lead at 14-10, a lead that stood until halftime.
“I thought we competed really well in the first half,” Pickens said. “We played with a lot of intensity. We had trouble with their defensive front and have to run the ball better. Their coverage was really tight and we didn’t have our best night on offense. They are really good on defense.”
In the second half, the Raiders extended the lead to 17-10 with a 20-yard field goal with 4:01 left in the third.
The game stayed there until early in the fourth when the Raiders hit a 63-yard touchdown pass on a screen pass to go up 24-10.
The Rebels answered with a scoring drive as Wilcox hit Matthew Nowell with 5:20 left in the game game. Nowell hit the PAT and the Rebels trailed 24-17.
But the Raiders took advantage of a fourth-down penalty and scored on a 31-yard run to extend its lead to 31-17.
The Rebels put together one more scoring drive as Wilcox hit Nowell on a 2-yard touchdown pass with 31 seconds left in the game. The PAT failed and JA led 31-23.
Leake failed to recover an onsides attempt and the Raiders held on to take the win.
The Rebels had 254 yards of total offense with 60 on the ground and 194 in the air. On the ground, John David Gill led Leake with 30 yards on six carries while Garrett Adcock had 29 yards on 15 carries.
Wilcox had a busy night, going 18-of-40 passing for 194 yards with two TDs and an interception. Nowell had 110 yards receiving and two TDs on eight catches while Matthan Weaver had eight catches for 73 yards.
On defense, the Rebels gave up 324 yards as JA had 153 yards rushing and 171 passing. Braden Welch led the Rebels with 11 tackles while Grayson McDonald, Coby Kemp and Tyler Winstead each had 4.5 tackles apiece. Jack Harkins had four tackles while Joshua Gray and Matthew Nowell each had 3.5 tackles. Winstead also had an interception for the Rebels.
The Rebels will have their home debut this week agains Starkville Academy.
The Volunteers are 1-1 on the season after beating Chambers Academy (LaFayette, Ala.) 35-31. The Volunteers lost 27-7 to Lamar School to open the season.
Last year, Starkville beat Leake twice. In the regular season, the Volunteers beat the Rebels 30-3 in the regular season and then 41-31 in the playoffs.
“It will be another tough game for us,” Pickens said. “We know they are going to be well coached and will throw something at us that we haven’t seen from them before. It’s usually a close game and it’s usually a fun game. They did a lot of stuff to us in the playoffs last year so we know we have to be ready for some complicated schemes from them.”