'Good show': East Prairie rallies past Portageville 40-26 on Homecoming

East Prairie's Aaron Miller (29) and teammates celebrate after stuffing Portageville's Caden Robins late in the fourth quarter Friday night in East Prairie. (Photo by David Jenkins, Staff)

Eagles' Connor Scott accounts for five touchdowns in win

sd_sports@yahoo.com

EAST PRAIRIE -- Passing for three touchdowns and running for two, Connor Scott guided East Prairie's offense to 444 total yards against visiting Portageville.

After the Bulldogs' Fred Treadwell scored on a 64-yard run midway through the third to put Portageville up six, the Eagles went on to score 20 unanswered points in their 40-26 win.

"That's senior homecoming," East Prairie's Aaron Miller said. "It's our last chance to come out here and wow our fans.

"I feel like we gave them a good show tonight and that's what we wanted to do."

With his team down by six after Treadwell's above mentioned touchdown, Scott capped East Prairie's ensuing drive by taking the ball up the middle from two yards out to give his team a one point lead following a successful point after.

Giving their defense a little room to work with, Scott started the third by finding Mikey Russell for the second time on the night, hooking up in the left corner of the end zone to give their team an 8-point lead.

"We saw that they were overloading our wing side big time," East Prairie coach Jason Aycock said. (Offensive coordinator Gary) Scott said 'I think I'm going to go with a waggle right here' and that's when I said, 'coach it's a touchdown'.

"I said Mikey's going to be wide open. You could just see it. That was just one of those deals where we checked off and it checked off good for us."

With star running back Treadwell leaving the game with an injury late in the third, the Bulldogs ground game, successful to that point, was unable to answer.

Icing the game East Prairie went on to find the end zone one last time when Scott took a sneak up the middle from 1-yard out with 3:51 to play.

"We came out a little flat the first half, but in the second we came out and started playing like we should," Scott said. "We need to be playing (well) rolling in to districts. We took over and got us a good win."

Though the Eagle's only went to the air ten times, they routinely came away with big results. Going 6-for-10 for 143 yards, three of Scott's completions found the end zone.

It was Russell coming away with the bulk of the yardage, as his two catches went for 63 and 32-yard touchdowns respectively.

Leading the ground attack, Miller got the bulk of the carries, going for 129 yards on 19 carries.

While the Eagles' offense piled on the points, came up big in several momentum changing situations.

With East Prairie up 20-14 and Portageville threatening to score, the Eagle's defense came up with a big goal stand in the final minutes of the second, allowing East Prairie to hold their 6-point lead going in to the break.

Going for the touchdown on 4th-and-goal from the five, the Eagle's stopped Treadwell for a 2-yard gain up the middle, turning the ball over and allowing East Prairie to run out the final minute of the half.

"That right there was kind of a momentum shift," Russell said. "It got us going in the right direction. We just built and got better and better as the game went on it seemed like."

It was Russell's alertness on defense that helped lock up the game as Russell knocked the ball loose on a Dominique Walker carry early in the fourth with East Prairie up by one on what could have been a go-ahead drive by the Bulldogs.

"The fumble was what really jammed them hard there," Aycock said. "When you have a game going like that there, you need somebody to come up with a big play and our defense come up big right there."

First Quarter

E -- JT Aycock 32 run (Frankie Nave kick good), 9:31

P -- Caden Robbins 2 run (Frankie Nave kick failed), 2:30

E -- Mikey Russell 63 pass from Connor Scott (Frankie Nave kick good), 1:37

Second Quarter

P -- Tevin Walker 24 pass from Caden Robbins (Fred Treadwell run good), 9:22

E -- JT Aycock 23 pass from Connor Scott (Frankie Nave kick failed), 8:05

Third Quarter

P -- Tevin Walker 83 kickoff return (kick blocked), 11:45

P -- Fred Treadwell 64 run (Caden Robbins run failed), 6:43

E -- Connor Scott 2 run (Frankie Nave kick good), 4:05

Fourth Quarter

E -- Connor Scott 1 run (Frankie Nave kick failed), 3:51

Team Statistics

Individual Statistics

Rushing

Portageville -- Fred Treadwell 25-158, Mason Kellams 11-28, Caden Robbins 9-17. East Prairie -- Aaron Miller 19-129, JT Aycock 6-92, Zach Shipman 8-65, Connor Scott 6-15.

Passing

Portageville -- Mason Kellams 5-8-0 50, Caden Robbins 1-1-0, 24. East Prairie -- Connor Scott 6-10-0 143.

Receiving

Portageville -- Tevin Walker 5-61, Hunter Ivie 1-13. East Prairie -- Mikey Russell 2-95, JT Aycock 3-44, Aaron Miller 1-4.