The Winona Christian Stars hit the gas early and didn’t take their foot off the pedal until halftime.
The Stars raced out to a 21-0 lead as they cruised to a 41-20 win over Tunica on Friday night. The Stars improve to 1-0 on the season and will travel to Winston Academy on Friday night.
Graham was pleased with the win after his team amassed 319 yards rushing and 66 passing for 385 yards of total offense.
“I thought we played well,” Graham said. “They did something totally opposite of what we anticipated and sold out to stop our outside guys so we just ran the ball inside all night. We executed decently up front and were to take what they were giving us. They just depleted the box and we got good production out of our running backs and quarterback. We had a good mixture of guys running the football. Dalton [Wiggins] and Blake [Cooper] ran well and Bradley [Pinkard] is going to be a good change of pace back for us.”
The Stars opened up the scoring when quarterback John White called his own number and scored on a 6-yard run and Bradley Pinkard booted the PAT and Winona led 7-0.
On their next drive, Dalton Wiggins got in on the act as he scored on a 16-yard run. Pinkard’s PAT gave the Stars a 14-0 lead.
The Stars went up 21-0 early in the second when White scored his second touchdown on a 20-yard run. Tunica scored its only points of the first half on a 30-yard interception return to cut the lead to 21-6 early in the second quarter.
The Stars tacked on three more second-quarter touchdowns as Pinkard scored on a 33-yard run, Wiggins on a 59-yard run and White on a 4-yard run as Winona led 41-6 at the half.
“Their only score in the first half was on an interception,” Graham said. “Our first-team defense gave up just two first downs in the first half and we didn’t play any starters in the second half. I thought we did a good job on defense of stopping them and limiting what they were trying to do. We mass subbed in the second half and played a lot of people in the first half. I just hope that doesn’t hurt us against Winston since our first-team guys only played one half.”
Tunica scored two second-half touchdowns with a running clock for the final score of 41-20.
Wiggins led the Winona offense with 101 yards rushing on five carries with two TDs. Blake Cooper had a solid night with 89 yards rushing on seven carries with two catches for 30 yards.
On defense, Cooper also had five tackles while Hayden Self had five stops as well. Jacob Mann also had an interception on Tunica two-point attempt.
The Stars will try to make it two in a row as they take on one of Graham’s former schools in Winston Academy.
The Patriots opened up the season with a 56-0 loss to Leake Academy and trailed 49-0 at the half.
“It’s hard to tell about Winston,” Graham said. “Leake beat them so bad. If they had a running back, they would be a really good football team. They do a good job of slide protecting and throwing the football. The quarterback is a good player and No. 5 is a solid receiver. They are going to be coached up, you can bet on that.”
Last year, the Stars beat Winston 32-13 en route to a 7-0 start on the season.
“I’m expecting it to be a four-quarter game,” Graham said. “We are expecting four quarters of football like it was two years ago. I expect the same on Friday night. Last year, they went empty and four wide receivers a lot and threw it around so we have to prepare for that. I really expect a good game from them. I think we are pretty evenly matched.”
