A jarring sack on Harrison Central’s Tavis Williams set the tone early for the Maroon Tide.
On just the second drive for the Red Rebels, Picayune’s Michael Ferrier sifted through the Rebel’s line and leveled Williams into the ground for a big loss. On the very next play, Kevin Reed picked off Williams’ pass and set up the Tide offense on the Rebel 22 yard line. Seven plays later, quarterback Skylar Bowman snuck into the end zone with 2:50 left in the first quarter, putting the Tide ahead 7-0.
Friday night, Picayune went on to accomplish their first win this season 49-30, improving their standing to 1-3.
The Tide kept rolling as they relied heavily on junior running back Josh Littles who broke free for a 70-yard touchdown run with 10:41 in the second quarter to put Picayune up 14-0.
Kickoff coverage, however, was a serious issue for the Tide. Seventeen seconds after Littles’ explosive run, on the ensuing kickoff Malik Blackston took the ball to the house for Harrison Central making the score 14-6.
Coach Dodd Lee’s squad responded with a 13-play, 74-yard touchdown drive that ate up five and a half minutes of clock. The drive was capped off by a one yard run by V.J. Holt.
After Picayune forced another three and out, Bowman connected with Kevin Reed on a 45-yard touchdown with just 1:32left in the half. That score took the Tide into the half with a commanding 28-6 lead.
Harrison Central pushed back offensively in the second half. Williams threw two touchdown passes, both to Wayne Barnett, had a rushing touchdown and the Rebels returned yet another kickoff for a touchdown.
The Rebels’ quarterback was a problem for the Tide defense—he ran for over 100 yards effectively using the spread option. Ultimately that wasn’t enough to overcome the Tide’s consistent offensive attack.
Taking care of the football was also a factor—Picayune had one giveaway, a Littles fumble in the fourth. Conversely, the Rebels gave it away twice—two interceptions thrown by Williams during Fridays match.
“I thought we played an outstanding first half, then we had a couple injuries we lost Vyron Brown and Imond Robinson, when we lost them our secondary just falls apart, we don’t do very well against spread option assignments, we haven’t done it all year and we didn’t do it in the second half and we didn’t tackle very well once they caught the football and we didn’t cover kicks very well,” Coach Lee said. “Really sloppy in the second half—sloppy, sloppy”
The Tide go on the road next week to face Gautier.

Top Tide Performers:

Rushing
Josh Littles 28-247, yards and 3 TDs
Skylar Bowman 4-6, 6 yards and 2 TDs

Passing
Skylar Bowman 2-5, 45 yards, TD

Defense
Michael Ferrier 2 sacks