By Thomas Sellers Jr.
MEMPHIS — It took an old-school, grind-it-out drive to help the Millington Trojans win a November showdown against the Trezevant Bears.
Friday night both squads met under the light of Raleigh-Egypt Stadium to settle the issue of the Class 3A First Round contest. The No. 2 seeded Bears jumped out early 8-0. Then the No. 3 Trojans scored 21 unanswered.
Trezevant staged a comeback with a time consuming third quarter drive to cut the deficit to 21-16. Could Millington respond? Head Coach Chris Michael’s offense led by quarterback McCoy Pugh marched down the chopped up brown turf of REHS field to a crucial touchdown. The Trojans added an insurance score to make the final 34-16.
“They were jumping around, moving their defense around,” Michael noted. “We’ll have a couple of successes then get a penalty or a negative play. We just kept getting behind the sticks. And that’s what it came down to on the offensive side of the ball.
“Try to string together a couple of plays, we shot ourselves in the foot,” he added. “We struggled with stringing plays together. When we were able to string some plays together we were able to get down the field and score.”
After the Bears scored a minute and 33 seconds into the game, Millington made the score 8-7 when Cortlynn Barnes exploded for a long TD run. Chase Michael drilled the extra point.
The Trojans snatched the lead before the first quarter whistle when Barnes took a sweep handoff from Pugh. As Barnes turned the corner, the wideout threw a textbook spiral to fellow wide receiver Brandon Warner for a 42-yard touchdown pass and 14-8 advantage.
Millington surged ahead 21-8 late in the second quarter, capping off a drive with a Pugh quarterback sneak.
The third quarter was the Bears’ turn to matriculate the ball down the field. Trezevant converted and took advantage of penalties to score a touchdown. Adding the two-point conversion and the score was 21-16.
The Trojans gained possession early in the fourth period and used a combination of runs from Pugh, J’vion Todd and Jaydon Williams to seize control of the game. Pugh had the honors of scoring the touchdown to make the score 27-16.
The Trojans defense came up with a crucial interception late in the fourth quarter leading to a Todd 4-yard TD run with 48 seconds left in the contest.
As the final horn echoed throughout the Memphis sky, the Trojans of Millington were getting mentally ready to play the Trojans of Dyersburg in the Second Round.
Back on Oct. 15, Millington traveled up to Dyersburg on a rainy Friday night and took a 51-0 defeat. Dyersburg dominated in the First Round beating the Sheffield Knights 49-0.
“They’re 10-0 and I knew they would probably take care of their business up there,” Michael said. “We talked about it about 4 weeks ago when we were up there. As bad as we were (that night) I felt this team would probably be right back up there. I kind of had a vision on how this thing was going to shake out. Everything would finish this way if we did all the things we were supposed to.
“Those guys I am glad they’re going to get a second chance,” he concluded. “First time we had horrible conditions and the game was bad. We’re going to look at it as a fresh start, get up there and get after it the best we can. We’re going to do the best we can to see if we can shake up the mix up there with Dyersburg.”
