When starting quarterback Tyler Taylor went down in the first quarter with a shoulder injury, Yazoo City head coach Justin Washington and his Indians were put in a precarious position of having to move wide receiver Amarion Brown to quarterback, thus taking away one of their offense's biggest threats.
Luckily for the Indians the other threat, senior running back Desmond Johnson, was up to the task as he rushed for 110 yards on 32 carries and scored three touchdowns to push the Indians to a 24-18 victory over the Greenville Hornets. With the win the Indians improved to 4-5 on the season, but more importantly, the win secured them a spot in the playoffs, a remarkable feat for a team that was winless the last two seasons.
"It's hard to put in words what this means. A lot of hard work has gone into this and it's always good to reap the benefits of what you've sown," said Washington. "These kids have bought into what we're trying to do. Even though we're not where we want to be, we can definitely see the improvements."
Added Washington, "Tyler going down was definitely a brief moment of letdown. Amarion has played QB for us already this season so we had a back-up plan. We just hadn't repped it enough to have a full game plan. I leaned on the defense during that time to help us out and they held down until we could get into halftime and get a real discussion on the best scenario going forward."
Washington must now get his Indians, who are quite naturally flying high after such a huge win, to refocus and turn their attention to the regular season finale against the district's toughest team, the undefeated Cleveland Central Wolves.
"That's a tough task and the fact that Cleveland is undefeated is playing a big role. They're really motivated to try and knock them off. I try to stay even-keeled and just push the 1-0 narrative. We just have to take it week to week and prepare for the team at hand."
The Indians will rely heavily on Johnson again this week as they keep Taylor sidelined for precautionary reasons.
Said Washington, "Tyler is ok. It's a shoulder injury. We're going to sit him out this week and hopefully he'll be ready to roll for our playoff matchup."
Other important players against Greenville were Taylor with one carry for 33 yards before his night abruptly ended. Brown added four carries for 20 yards and Marquez Green had one carry for three yards.
Johnson also led the defensive attack Friday night with seven tackles. Jaquarious Nelson had five, Deon Johnson and Jaleen Barber each had four, Maurice Booker and Isaiah Robinson had three apiece, and Brown and Damarion Sherman had two each.
The Indians have a short week this week as they travel to district-leading and undefeated Cleveland Central on Thursday to close out the regular season. They are slated to face the West Point - New Hope winner in their first round playoff matchup.
