Even with two first-half turnovers, Carroll Academy trailed by just one score at halftime against Class 4A Washington.
But the Generals pulled away in the second half with three scores and took a 40-14 win.
Carroll falls to 0-2 on the season and will travel to Class 5A Starkville Academy on Friday.
Carroll coach Bo Milton said his team just made too many mistakes to win.
“We just make lots of mistakes,” Milton said. “It was a game of mistakes on our part and they capitalized on every one of them. We threw another pick six, fumbled in the red zone and if you take those plays away, it’s a totally different first half. We missed tackles and missed blocks, it was just a bad game all the way around for us. I thought we played hard and there was effort, it was just a weird vibe the whole second half. I’m not knocking Washington, they made plays and we didn’t. They made the plays and we didn’t.”
Carroll got the ball to start the game and threw a interception on the third play of the game, returning it 43 yards for a touchdown. The PAT was good and Washington led 7-0 early.
Carroll responded with a 68-yard, 11-play drive as Cohen Blaylock scored on a 5-yard run. Logan Upchurch hit the PAT to tie the game at 7-7.
Washington then went 63 yards in five plays, scoring on a 35-yard run to retake the lead at 14-7.
Washington got a short field early in the second period and scored on a 22-yard touchdown pass to extend its lead to 20-7.
The Rebels pulled close with a 66-yard touchdown run from Blaylock. Upchurch hit the PAT and Washington held a 20-14 lead at the half.
“We still ran the ball decently,” Milton said. “We had over 200 yards rushing and outside of one bad pass, threw the ball decently. Defensively, we looked good at times but had too many breakdowns. We didn’t help ourselves and it was still 20-14 at the half. We felt good about that at the half considering. But they came out and got up by two scores and that’s really hard for our offense to come back from. They just kept hammering the ball right at us and it took a toll on us.”
Washington got the ball to start the second half and used some big plays to put the game away.
The first was a 56-yard run by the quarterback to go up 27-14 while the second ws a 41-yard run to extend the lead to 34-14.
Carroll put together a 15-play drive but turned the ball over on downs. Washington then put the game away with an 11-play drive and scored on a 25-yard quarterback keeper for the final score of 40-14.
Carroll had 211 yards rushing and 42 passing for 253 yards of total offense. Blaylock had 121 yards rushing on 13 carries while Owen Garrett had 51 yards on 15 carries. Nathan Matthews had 38 yards on nine carries.
Logan Upchurch was 6-of-11 passing for 42 yards with an interception while Blaylock had three catches for 19 yards. Garrett had two catches for 20 yards.
On defense, Blaylock had eight tackles while Matthews and Reed Thomas had seven tackles. Ryder Dowdle also had six tackles for the Rebels.
This week’s game
Carroll’s rugged preseason schedule doesn’t get any easier this week as they travel to Class 5A Starkville Academy.
Starkville is 1-2 on the season with losses to Lamar (27-7) and Leake (35-19). They beat Chambers Academy 35-31 in week two.
“Watching them on film, they don’t look any better than Washington or Canton,” Milton said. “It’s just a question of what team is going to show up for us. I hope our kids don’t already think they are beat because it’s 5A Starkville. I just hope they have a little more toughness than that. We want to go compete and see what happens.”
Last year, Starkville won 35-8.
