By Whitman McGee
Class 4A’s fourth ranked Huntington Raiders paid a visit to W.W. Williams Stadium on Friday night for a much-anticipated senior night matchup with the Minden Crimson Tide.
Unfortunately for Tide faithful, however, the Raiders (8-1) bested the Tide (3-6) by a final score of 40-7.
Minden won the coin toss and elected to defer to the second half.
After a back-and-forth that saw the Tide force two Raider 3 & out’s, Minden started to put a drive together.
Tide lead running-back Daylen Robinson, was at the forefront of this drive, rushing for 48 yards and eventually a Minden score. Carter Barnett’s extra-point try was good, and Minden led 7-0 with 3:04 to go in the first.
Huntington held Minden scoreless through the rest of the contest, finding the end-zone six straight times of their own.
Despite a solid defensive effort throughout most of the first half, fatigue set in for the Tide, and Huntington extended their winning streak to 8 games.
“We played well, especially in the first half,” said Head Coach Spencer Heard. “I think later in the game there were some tackles we should have made. Some of that may have been fatigue or loss of focus toward the end when they were up on us.”
The Tide did what they were looking to do, dominating the time of possession battle by holding the ball over 20 minutes more than the Raiders.
Huntington counteracted this by scoring on explosive, chunk plays that accumulated in 246 of their 414 total yards.
Offensive highlights for Minden include RB Daylen Robinson’s 100-yards rushing with 1 touchdown and QB Andrew Cooper’s 65 yards rushing.
Defensively, Junior DE Makhi Reed registered a sack late in the 3rd quarter.
The Journal would like to send our thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery to Huntington RB Demajah Riley, who suffered an apparent leg injury that required medical attention.
Following this defeat, Minden falls to 3-6 on the season, but all hope is not lost.
With one game remaining in the regular season, Coach Heard wants the Tide to finish on their terms, saying, “I told them a couple of weeks ago that we want to finish correctly, we want to finish the right way.” Heard continued, “So we’re going to show up to work next week just like any other week, put a gameplan together, and practice well and try to go execute next Friday night.”
Special thanks to Mark Chreene and KASO/KBEF radio for providing The Journal with stats from Friday night’s game.
