When Winona Christian School needed a win, the Stars turned to the running game.
The Stars ran for 235 yards and used a stingy defense to take a 26-0 win over Oak Hill on Friday night.
With the win, the Stars improve to 8-2 on the season and will be the No. 2 seed in the Class 3A playoffs. The Stars will have a first-round bye and will face the winner of Greenville Christian and Centreville Academy.
WCS coach Junior Graham was glad to get a win heading into the bye week after two straight close losses.
“I thought we played pretty good,” Graham said. “I thought we got our identity back. Going in without Thomas (Costilow), we had to figure out a way to run the football. I thought the three backs (Dalton Wiggins, Hayden Self and Reed Roberts) we ran did a really good job. Friday night was the first time we have run Reed and gotten him any reps. Hayden ran well but he makes so many plays for us on defense, we just can’t turn around and ask him to run it 25 times.”
After a scoreless first quarter, the Stars finally got on the board in the second quarter when Hayden Self scored on a 2-yard run. Dalton Wiggins ran in the two-point conversion and the Stars led 8-0.
The Stars added another score in the second quarter when Wiggins scored on a 13-yard run as Winona led 14-0 at the half.
“Oak Hill has a good offense and I thought our defense played really well,” Graham said. “Their offense can present you some issues. I thought we tackled well in space, which we didn’t do the week before. I thought we did a good job of keeping them behind the chains.”
After a scoreless third quarter, the Stars added two more scores in the fourth quarter. The first score came when Reed Roberts scored on a 39-yard run to give the Stars a 20-0 lead.
The last score came when Choyce Diffey scored on a 31-yard interception return.
The Stars had 267 yards of total offense as they rushed for 235 yards on 33 carries. Wiggins had 125 yards on 19 carries while Self had 77 yards on nine carries. John White was 5-of-12 passing for 32 yards.
Oak Hill had 34 yards rushing and 60 passing for 94 total yards. Self had 11 tackles while Ben Pinkard had nine tackles. Diffey, Wiggins and Jake Ware each had interceptions.
