Houston County outlasts Perry in second annual shootout

PERRY, Ga. — If you weren’t at the Panther Pit for last Friday’s game between the Houston County Bears and Perry Panthers, you missed out.

Last year the teams took part in one of the most thrilling games of the entire season, a shootout that ended in HoCo’s favor 57-56. This year was a worthy sequel.

The theatrics took a little while to get started, but once they got going they didn’t stop as Houston County led 21-7 at the half behind some big plays on both sides of the ball.

Senior wideout Ricky Johnson had maybe the most notable play of the entire game with a 98-yard touchdown to open the scoring. After senior running back Ryan Taleb ran it in a few for a touchdown Darius Patterson ripped the ball away from a Perry receiver and ran it back for six points.

Though the big plays and the halftime score make it seem like the Bears were completely in control, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Perry had three takeaways in just the first half alone, and HoCo had a repeat of last week against Sumter County by fumbling on their first drive of the game.

It’s something Houston County head coach Jeremy Edwards said last week they want to improve, and he wasn’t happy with their effort through the first half.

“We need to improve on it. [I said] this time last week we needed to improve on it and I think we got worse at it,” Edwards said. “That falls on me, I’ve got to do a better job as head coach and make sure we have great ball security and that we sustain drives and finish drives and ultimately win the game.”

One thing that helped HoCo get ahead at the half was the fact that Perry’s offense just didn’t look comfortable.

It was their first game of the season, senior quarterback Colter Ginn looked a little shaky and they couldn’t get anything going on the ground.

Though, once Perry came out of the locker room for the third quarter, it looked like a different team entirely.

Ginn made good, quick decisions. Junior and sophomore running backs Ahmad Gordon and Corrion Daniels chipped away on the ground. After burning over half of the third quarter, Gordon muscled his way in for a touchdown to put Perry down 21-14 with 4:45 to go in the period.

“I think a lot of it has to do with it was our opening game. They had a chance to get their opening jitters out last week, we didn’t,” Perry head coach Kevin Smith said. “That’s not an excuse, they beat us…we’ve got a couple starters out there on the offensive side at quarterback and running back, that’s their first time being out there under the lights first. But once we settled down we played really good, I was real proud of our team tonight.”

On HoCo’s ensuing drive, Perry caught junior quarterback AJ Hill behind the sticks twice to force a punt after nearly intercepting a pass, taking over on their 12-yard line.

Perry marched down to the 16-yard line, and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, Ginn found senior Donovan Funsch for his only catch of the game to tie it up at 21 with 7:44 left in the game.

It was at this point, however, that the Bears started to find that explosiveness they’d been missing since the first half.

A big kick return from Taleb was called back on a penalty, but that didn’t matter. A pass to Johnson and a big run by Taleb put HoCo on Perry’s 20-yard line, and it was only a matter of time before Hill found junior Gavin Kurpis in the end zone to retake the lead.

Perry responded with a couple of chunk plays to junior Kory Pettigrew and senior Khalid Miller before Gordon ran it in seven yards to tie it back up.

But, as the theme went, Hill found Johnson over the middle for 22 yards and another score, but they missed the extra point. That proved to be a very crucial mistake because 11 seconds later Miller took the kickoff return all the way to the house.

Perry had their side of the field rocking, and all they needed was one stop with 2:32 left in the game.

The Perry defensive backs did their absolute best to contain Houston County’s passing attack, but Hill kept connecting with senior Josh Henry on the left sideline.

Hill did miss a deep shot and Maurice Hayes Jr. broke up a pass in the end zone, but it was only a matter of time.

Hill found Johnson on, you guessed it, the left sideline and he took it all the way in for a touchdown. After the two-point conversion to Henry, Perry had a chance to drive the field again, but only with 43 seconds.

Ginn did manage to put Perry on the HoCo 34-yard line, but his passes fell incomplete and time expired.

With the way the offense was rolling, Perry only needed one stop to take control of the game late, but they just couldn’t get it.

“We’ve got 10 new starters on defense, we needed one stop, and we couldn’t get it,” Smith said. “They’ve got really good players, we do too, but they made more plays than we did when it came down to it.”

HoCo got over their first half inconsistencies and strung together the big chunk plays their offense usually produces, and it proved to be too much.

Something that helped Houston County get through the inconsistencies that plagued much of the game was a teammate who wasn’t even on the sidelines.

Senior wide receiver Kale Woodburn took a big hit and had to be stretchered off of the field and taken to the hospital. He was discharged later.

“We lost a kid tonight that means a lot to our team. [He] got hit on the sideline and had to go to the hospital,” Edwards said. “I challenged the guys at halftime — Kale [Woodburn] would do anything to be out there, whatever we can do we’ve got to dig deep so that we can win this game for him. That’s for him.”

After the game Edwards had some high praise for Perry, but at the end of the day he was happy his guys came out on top and started looking ahead to this week’s matchup.

“I think that this team we just beat has got a good chance to go and win it all 4A,” Edwards said. “We’ve got a lot of things we’ve gotta fix. Both sides of the ball, special teams. It’s week two, so we’ll get back next week, fix all those things and get ready for West Laurens.”

HoCo plays West Laurens on Friday, Sep. 1 on Freedom Field at 7:30 p.m.

Perry takes a break this week before coming back to the Panther Pit on Friday, Sep. 8 to play Veterans at 7:30 p.m.

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