Benton Academy’s Homecoming game did not go exactly as planned when they fell 47-0 to rival Tri-County Academy.
The loss dropped Benton’s overall record to 1-7 on the year.
Benton Academy head football coach Kenny Burton was pleased with the effort his team showed, but he wants real wins, not moral wins.
“I thought the effort was a lot better this week,” Burton said. “We’re still struggling to make tackles when we have a chance. That’s a pretty tough gauntlet of games we’ve had to play, but a loss is a loss. We’re not trying to get moral victories. We want to win on the scoreboard. We had a good week of practice a week ago, and hopefully, that carries over.”
Before the game started, Olivia Hutto was named Benton Academy’s Homecoming Queen.
Unfortunately for the Raiders and Benton Academy fans, it provided one of the few bright spots of the evening.
Things took an enormous shift for the worst on Tri-County’s first possession.
On their first offensive play, Tri-County broke an 80-yard touchdown run thanks to some nifty moves by Garrett Harmon, giving the Rebels a 6-0 lead.
Five minutes later, Harmon scored his second touchdown of the game on a 6-yard run.
Swayze Bozeman scored his first touchdown of the game just 22 seconds later on an 18-yard run.
The Rebels scored one more touchdown in the first to make it 24-0.
And so it went until the whistle blew and the Rebels were standing tall by a score of 47-0.
Bruner Chandler led the team in tackles with five.
Nolan Whitworth had two tackles for loss in the defeat.
Hayden Middleton, Tristan Trott and Gage Jones each had four tackles.
The Raiders faced one of the toughest 1-2 punches in AA football with Canton Academy two weeks ago and Tri-County Academy this past week.
Things will get slightly easier on Friday night when they travel to Vicksburg to face Porter’s Chapel on Friday night.
Porter’s Chapel is 0-8 on the year after falling 52-0 to Wilkinson County Christian the past week.
Despite their winless record, Burton believes Porter’s Chapel’s multiple offenses could give them some problems.
“They’ve run a different offensive scheme in every film I’ve seen on them,” Burton said. “I’m not sure what they’ll try to do exactly. We’ll work hard and practice everything they’ve shown so far.”
Kickoff between Benton and Porter’s Chapel is set for 7 p.m.
