Posted on October 23, 2015.
By Thomas Sellers Jr.
COVINGTON — Before the first kickoff of the 2015 season, Millington Trojans Head Coach Chris Michaels was left with one lasting impression of his team’s schedule.
Michaels thought teams like Munford, Memphis East, Hernando, Collierville and Ridgeway would be run-oriented offenses. Entering Friday night’s visit to Covington, Michaels had to get a mostly underclassmen defensive line ready for the challenge of stopping Chargers like Brock Lomax, TJ Smith and Ish Jones.
“We got a few banged up,” Michaels said after the East game. “We have to see how those guys are available and hopefully they’ll be able to go.
“It’s another team who runs the ball,” he added. “We’ll have to be ready in that defensive front. I think we had four sophomores and a freshman in the box with Jonathan and Paul.”
Millington seniors Jonathan Clements and Paul Robinson joined forces with underclassmen like James Cox, Jeremiah Russell and Kyle Lindley to neutralize Covington in the first quarter. The Trojans were ahead 21-7 after one period.
“Those guys are under fire every Friday night,” Michael said. “And it won’t be any different this Friday night against Covington. They’ll be running the ball straight at us. Those young guys will have to continue to grow up and play ball.”
The young Millington defense experienced growing pains the rest of the night with the Chargers outscoring the Trojans 35-7 the last three quarter of the game to win 42-28.
The night started well for the Trojans when Eldon Tyms scored on a quarterback keeper to make the score 6-0 less than 2 minutes into the game.
The Trojans (2-7) went ahead 14-0 midway through the first quarter when Tyms hit receiver Kip Fleming for a big pass play to the 4-yard line.
Millington sophomore running back Justin Coleman cross the goal line for the touchdown. Tyms added the two-point conversion to put the Trojans ahead by two touchdowns.
Covington (7-2) cut the deficit in half when Smith broke loose for a 62-yard run to the end zone. The Chargers were behind 14-7 for about a minute.
Millington went back on the attack offensively through the air. Tyms hooked up with his favorite target Fleming once again. This time Fleming couldn’t be caught reaching the end zone from 73 yards out to make the score 21-7.
The Trojans won the first quarter including a defensive stop in the closing seconds of the opening period forcing a Covington turnover on downs.
But the rest of the night belonged to the purple and gold. Covington scored 35 points and held Millington to a touchdown to earn the victory.
Covington will close out the 2015 regular season against the Sheffield Knights. And the Trojans will conclude the 2015 regular season at Craigmont next Friday night.
