Scott leads Portageville to 34-12 victory

PORTAGEVILLE -- The Portageville Bulldogs wasted little time in getting on the scoreboard Friday night against the Fulton City (Ky.) Bulldogs.

Antonio Scott opened the contest with an 87-yard kickoff return to give Portageville a lead en route to a 34-12 win for its fifth victory against only one loss.

Scott continued his stellar effort as the first period unfolded with three more rushes for 107 yards including a 65-yard run for his second touchdown at the 3:44 mark of the quarter. With Jacob Summeton's successful extra points, Portageville led after one 14-0.

Due to an injury to Portageville's Spencer Martin, coach Jim McKay tried a new alignment with Jordan Penn in the backfield with Scott. Sophomore C.J. Medley filled in at quarterback for Penn.

"We're kind of short on running backs, so we had to try some things to see how strong we could get for districts," explained McKay. "We might have had a mental letdown after beating Hayti last week, but that's no excuse to play ragged like we did tonight. Fulton plays more big schools than we do, and they are very young like we are."

Portageville's Michael Conaway made a key play with 2:28 left in the half when he hustled down field on a punt and downed the ball on the visitors' three yard line.

Three plays later, Fulton was forced to punt from deep in the endzone.

Scott caught the punt at the 40 and scampered into the endzone to make the halftime score 21-0.

Antonio Scott tallied his fourth and final score of the night with 3:13 left in the third quarter on a 25-yard run. Scott finished the evening with 13 rushes for 199 yards.

Leonard Boyd scored the final touchdown for Portageville with 9:11 left in the game.

After stopping Fulton on the last play of the third period, Portageville took over on downs on the Fulton 42. Boyd lumbered down the field for a 26-yard gain and two plays later punched the pigskin in from the seven to make the count 34-0.

From that point, Portageville was able to play some younger players.

Fulton junior running back Josh Burton gathered in a 31-yard pass from quarterback Don Ray to score the first points for the visitors at the 6:39 mark then scored once more with 1:06 left from 12 yards out.

"Portageville has a good football team, they've got a good tradition and I thought they played a clean, hard football game. They took advantage of every mistake that we made," commented Fulton head coach Wayne Lohaus.

The "second season" starts for Portageville next Friday when they will visit Malden for the first game of district play.