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By Fred Guarino
The Lowndes Signal
The Chambers Academy Rebels proved rude homecoming guest Friday night, defeating the home standing Lowndes Academy Rebels 44-24 with a relentless ground attack.
What began as a very competitive football game went sour quickly for the Rebels near the end of the first half when Chambers Academy turned a 6-6 stalemate into three touchdown blitz upping the score to 24-6 in a span of about two minutes.
The home standing Rebels of Lowndes Academy scored their first touchdown of the night on a pass from David Hussey to Mason McCurdy. And the contest seemed destined to be a 6-6 tie going into the half. But the visiting Rebels scored on about a 9-yard run to make it a 12-6 contest with 2:16 left in the half.
Following an interception, Chambers scored on about a 53-yard touchdown run to make it an18-6 contest with 1:20 left in the half.
Following another interception and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against the home Rebels, the visiting Rebels scored on about a 5-yard run to make it 24-6 with about 42 seconds left in the half.
The Rebels had a chance to make it a 24-12 contest with about 8 seconds left in the half, but sure touchdown pass fell harmlessly to the ground.
“It was a hard fought ballgame. We dug ourselves a hole right before the end of the half,” said Lowndes Academy head football coach Bob Taylor. “When you give up three touchdowns in two minutes at the end of the half… we dug ourselves a hole.”
However, the Lowndes Academy Rebels let Chambers Academy know quickly they were not going to quit in this contest.
Brandon Reid returned the second half kickoff about 95 yards for a touchdown to get the score to 24-12 at the 11:46 mark of the third quarter and to make a football game of it again.
The home standing Rebels would score again when Reid followed up a long Hussey run to walk into the end zone from the 1-yard line at the 6:34 mark of the third quarter to make the score 24-18.
And the Lowndes Academy Rebels really appeared to be making a statement when Cole Crook recovered a Chambers fumble, which Reid followed up with about a 39-yard touchdown run to make it a 24-24 with 6:07 left in the third quarter.
But that proved to be the last score from the home standing Rebels.
Chambers would score on a pass play at the 5:53 mark of the third quarter to make it a 30-24 game.
A Lowndes Academy touchdown was called back for holding. And Chambers would score on a about a 58-yard run and 2-point conversion to go up 38-24 with 1:54 left in the third quarter.
A long run of about 80 yards by Chambers’ Malik Lyons would be the final nail to make it a 44-24 victory for the visitors.
For the Lowndes Academy Rebels, Reid had three touchdowns, including a 95-yard kickoff return, and he had 13 carries for 159 yards.
Hussey went three for six passing for 28 yards and had a touchdown pass to Mason McCurdy. He also had 13 carries for 103 yards.
Brian Rayburn had one catch for 46 yards.
Defensively for the Lowndes Academy Rebels, Owen Nall had 12 tackles while Hussey had 10 tackles. The Lowndes Academy Rebels had 387 yards of total offense, 288 yards rushing and 99 passing.
“We fought back, got back into what we needed to do,” Taylor of his team’s grit in this contest. He said his Rebels had one touchdown called back. But he said, “We can’t dig ourselves that big of a hole. We’ve got to continue to work and get better and do the things we needed to do.”
The Class A Region 2 Lowndes Academy Rebels are 2-2, 1-1 on the season.
Next week Taylor said the Lowndes Academy Rebels will begin a four-game stretch of regional games starting with South Chocktaw at home. It will be a hard fought ballgame I’m sure when we get ready for them,” Taylor said.
The Lowndes Academy Rebels will be at home again this coming Friday to face regional opponent South Choctaw as the first of the a four region game run.