By Thomas Sellers Jr.
The Millington Trojan coaching staff laid out a challenge to the linemen after losing the 2019 M&M Bowl.
After two week of subpar play, the Trojan offensive and defensive lines had their best overall performance of the young season against the MLK-Prep Dreamers in a 48-0 victory at Mooney Bosewell Field. Millington Head Coach Chris Michael said the game was a solid bounce back after the 12-7 loss to Munford because it all starts at the line of scrimmage.
“From a execution standpoint it was a lot better,” he said. “There weren’t that many turnovers. We took care of the ball pretty good. We eliminated the illegal procedure penalties which killed us against Munford.
“We played a lot of young kids,” Michael continued. “We’ll look at the film and see how they did. Our down defensive linemen did pretty good. We had a few blows in the offensive line executionwise and they know what they did. But I thought Dowdy and Dyson ran the ball well. Dowdy has some ability. And Dyson is a JV kid who got some run. Tommy did a good job of running the ball also.”
The offensive line of players like Tristan Payne, Hunter Smith, TJ Graves, Markees Flowers and Emmanuel Barrera paved the way for runners like Tommy Clifton, Damarion Dowdy and Jaylen Dowdy.
Starter Verdo Young missed most of the game after injuring his shoulder on the opening series. Other Millington players missing in action or playing on a limited based were Devin Knight, Romello Thomas, Brandon Warner and Reggie Caldwell.
The early moments of the game saw the two teams trade turnovers. Graves caused a fumble leading to a Young recovery. Moments laters a Clifton pass was tipped and intercepted by MLK-Prep.
The first touchdown of the game came at the 4:56 mark when Clifton broke loose for a 16-yard run to the end zone.
Millington (2-1) increased its lead after a Perry Harold pick set up a Clifton 9-yard touchdown run. The first quarter ended with the Trojans ahead 14-0.
Already driving the ball down the field, Dowdy used some escape moves through the Dreamers defense to reach the end zone from 29 yards out. The Trojans were ahead 21-0.
The Millington advantage grew to 28-0 at the 5:26 mark of the second quarter when Clifton scored on his third run of the night coming from 13 yards away.
The halftime score was 35-0 Millington after Clifton used his arm to locate receiver Courtlyn Barnes from 15 yards out.
In the second half the Trojans got younger players playing time with Dowdy making another run through the MLK-Prep defense for a touchdown. His second score of the night came from 15 yards away.
The scoring concluded with Dyson crossing the goal line with 3 minutes and 16 seconds left in the game from 22 yards out. The final score was 48-0.
Michael said the win displayed better execution but he wants to see the passing game improve with making routine catches. He also noted his players need to be accountable all five days of the week with the Northpoint Trojans coming to town next Friday at 7 p.m.
“We’re thin,” he acknowledged. “We’ve got a few people dinged up. We’ll have Devin back next week. We’re hoping Verdo will be OK. Reggie should be able to get back in the mix next week. But it is questionable with him. We’re thin, so you can’t not be at practice.
“We had our starting tight end and H-back in street clothes because he missed practice,” Michael concluded. “We benched the entirely of our skill players the whole first quarter because they missed practice on Monday. I was frustrated with that. We had people because they were coming off a loss, it was hot and Labor Day made excuses. You have to be here this week and be ready to work.”
