The Friday night lights were not kind to the Rockdale Tigers last week. The Blue & Gold lost their district opener against Little River-Academy 42-35.
Rockdale scored twice in the first quarter—Tiger running back Jeramiah Butler, who finished the game with over 100 yards of rushing, scored on a two-yard dash into the end zone and then Radyn Hamilton pushed in from the one-yard line and this put the Tigers up 14-7.
In the second quarter the Tigers scored by giving Hamilton the ball again. He scored from three yards out.
Hamilton had over 50 yards rushing in the game and he had three touchdowns.
At halftime the score was tied at 21.
The two teams continued to be evenly matched in the third quarter, each scored twice and the game was still tied going into the fourth quarter.
Rockdale scored on Hamilton’s third touchdown that came after a run of four yards.
The Tigers scored again on a 15-yard pass from quarterback Greyson Williams to wide receiver Erik Sheppard.
After three quarters, the score was 35-35.
The Bumblebees scored late in the fourth and, while Rockdale had a chance to tie or even win the game in the final seconds, it did not happen and the Tigers went to 0-1 in distr ict play with a 3-3 overall record.
Athletic director and he ad football coach Hunter Hamrick said, “The positive tonight is we had 481 yards of total offense. We ran the ball well. It was the first time we have had 200 yards of both passing and rushing.”
“ We mi s s e d s ome blocks and that cost us. Ther e wer e a couple of plays we called that I wished we had back,” he added. “Our defense is not in the best shape. I think we are trying to do too much. We have a lot of age on the defensive side of the ball, just not a lot of experience. When we had them in long-yardage situations like third and 16 or three and 12, we let them make big plays.”
STANDOUTS— Key players from the Academy game were:
• Jeramiah Butler, 127 yards of rushing on 27 attempts, one touchdown.
• Radyn Hamilton, 11 rushes, 59 yards and three touchdowns. He also had a sack on defense.
• Greyson Williams 19 of 27 with 281 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
• Erik Sheppard caught 11 passes for 131 yards and a touchdown. Sheppard also had nine tackles and a sack that included a strip ball.
• Brody Willard had 10 tackles.
• K icker Fernando Pacheco was perfect on the night making all five of his point after kicks.
THIS WEEK— The Tigers go on the road this week against the McGregor Bulldogs, who just lost to Cameron, 55-27. McGregor is 0-1 just like us in district play and 0-6 overall. McGregor has been outscored all year long, 56-27 on average per game. Friday’s kick off is at 7:30 p.m.
When asked about this Fr iday’s game against McGregor, Coach Hamrick said, “We need some wins. We are about to play against a team with an explosive running back and a quarterback who is young but he’s good.”
“They give up a lot of points on defense,” he said. “They don’t have the ability to double-cover our guy De’Andre Stephens, freeing him up is going to allow him to make some plays.”
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