NMCC pours on offense in rout of Charleston

Sunday, September 21, 2008
David Jenkins, Staff New Madrid County Central's Bryan Waters follows his lead blocker Josh Minner (7) for a 47-yard touchdown run in the rain Friday night in Charleston. Waters finished the game with 88 yards on six carries.

CHARLESTON -- The running game of New Madrid County Central has been tough to stop pretty much all season long. Rotating between a combination of three running backs and a quarterback that all have the speed to break off a big gain at any time.

They continued that trend on Friday night against the Charleston Bluejays.

The Eagles combined for 431 rushing yards in their shut out win over the Bluejays with 353 of those yards coming in the first half, along with all 39 of their points.

"It's no secret," NMCC head coach Arlen Pixley said. "We've got a talented bunch of tailbacks. They're all special at doing different little things. Maybe one runs one type of play better than they other one. They're not about any one guy getting anymore than the other guy. We're hoping that they are all about getting the 'W' at the end of the night."

Nine different rushers got at least one touch on the ground for the Eagles combining for five rushing touchdowns.

G'Darius Stevenson rushed seven times for 118 yards and had two touchdowns. His first score was a 57 yard run and the second was a 37 yard rush.

Bryan Waters finished with 88 yards on six carries with one 47 yard rushing touchdown.

Rodney Anderson carried the ball four times for 76 yards with two touchdowns. The first score of the night came on Anderson's 10 yard run and then later he rushed for a 37 yard touchdown.

NMCC's quarterback, Dontre Jenkins, did not throw a single pass all night long. But, he did run three times for 68 yards.

"The bottom line is they're stable and they're unselfish," Pixley added. "They root for each other when one goes in the other one high fives him on the way out. It's awesome to see them play together as a team and not be selfish."

The other score came from a blocked punt attempt by Kony Ealy that was picked up by Austin Meese for a 19 yard scramble into the endzone.

The Eagles defense allowed 72 passing yards and 56 rushing yards from a Bluejay team that has been riddled with injuries since the beginning of the season. Charleston lost a promising running back in Claude Armstrong to an injury earlier in the week and are still trying to get seniors Jerquawn Sherrell and James Miller back in the action.

"When we're playing some freshman and sophomores on our defense and they have the running core that they have, it could have been worse," Charleston head coach Dan Kesselring said. "We lost one of our power backs on Wednesday's practice due to a concussion. And we found out today (Friday) that our starting fullback wasn't going to be able to play. So, we ended up putting two kids in the backfield, Akem Sharp and Ben Nally, that hadn't had a whole lot of practice time. I thought they stepped up and played a heck of a ball game."

Ben Nally seemed to be everywhere on the field Friday night. With tackles on the defense, blocking for the offense and catching two passes for 19 yards in the wide receiver position.

"He started out at fullback during two-a-days but we were short-handed on linemen so we moved him back to guard where he played last year," Kesselring said about Nally. "He picked it up just fine. He had two tremendous catches I thought for not having run anything since two-a-days."

Antonio Riggens was the Bluejays leading rusher with 48 yards on 13 carries. Ronson Beard rushed twice for 13 yards.

McClendon threw the ball 18 times completing seven passes for 72 yards. Later in the game, sophomore Ethan Browning took over the quarterback duties and threw two completions for 31 yards each to receiver Donald Dixon. Deonte Jones added two catches for 45 yards.

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