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NMCC knocks off Perryville for third-straight district title
Eagles will host Potosi in the first round of playoffs
NEW MADRID -- Defense wins championships.
That was exactly the case for the New Madrid County Central Eagles on Thursday night as they rolled their way past the Perryville Pirates to claim their third straight Class 3, District 1 championship at New Madrid County Central High School.
The Eagles held Perryville to a total of 99 yards in the game and did not allow a point to complete the shutout, 34-0.
"It was nice to get the conference title last week and it's even sweeter to wrap up the district here," NMCC head coach Arlen Pixley said.
NMCC (8-2) was able to utilize their blazing speed to get the better of the bigger Pirates offensive and defensive lines. The Eagles defense kept tons of pressure on the Pirates quarterback Garrett Flentge and was able to plug up most runs up the middle from Perryville's Power-I formation.
"Our 160 pounders and our 180 pounders play better than most people's 250 pounders," Pixley said. "We've had to preach that from day one. If we could fight hard, play with great technique and play with Eagle pride then we would have a chance to be in this position. That proved positive tonight."
The Eagles racked up 294 yards of total rushing yards against Perryville (3-7) with Bryan Waters leading the way with 148 yards on 16 carries. Waters ran for a 30-yard touchdown for his only score in the third quarter.
G'Darius Stevenson ran for two touchdowns on 16 carries and 100 yards. Stevenson scored the first two touchdowns of the game. His first was in the first quarter with a two-yard run and the second was a 30-yard dash in the second quarter.
"I thought they did a pretty good job on defense," Pixley said of Perryville. "They didn't give us a whole lot of sledding on the outside which we're pretty good at. They made us turn it up inside. It was a good defensive scheme but, we just executed when we had to."
Quarterback Dontre Jenkins had three completions for 22 yards with 14 of those yards coming from a touchdown pass to Kony Ealy in the fourth quarter.
Ealy also forced and recovered a fumble for a score in the fourth quarter as well. Ealy stripped the ball away from running back Josh Perreault from seven yards behind the line of scrimmage on Perryville's 45-yard line. Ealy scooped up the ball and ran for a 42 yard score to completely put the game out of reach for the Eagles.
"With the style of offense they run and you hand it off that many times and you get all that pressure put on the line of scrimmage your going to force some turnovers and that's what we did," Pixley said.
Perreault was the Pirates leading rusher with 25 carries on 74 yards. Flentge, who was pressured all night and had to rush almost every throw, went for 1-for-14 in the air. He threw for a total of five yards and two interceptions.
"I think my quarterback might have been a little jumpy early because they were getting so much pressure on him," said May. "Whenever you have the athletes to play man and then put pressure up front your going to be tough to throw against."
Perryville ended up with three turnovers, two interceptions and the fumble that Ealy ran back for a touchdown. May said that against a team like NMCC, things like that cannot happen if your expecting success.
"We made too many mistakes," Perryville head coach Jim May said. "And against a team like New Madrid you can't make mistakes and expect to come out with a victory. We knew we were going to have to get off the ball and play hard and that didn't happen. They kind of got in our heads a little bit. We just made some fundamental mistakes."
Even though they did lose this contest, the Pirates claimed the second place finish in the district with a record of 2-1. They will face Ste. Genevieve on Wednesday who they fell to earlier in the season.
"We just have to get some things fixed," May said. "We got a big challenge next week against Ste. Genevieve. They're a pretty explosive team and we've already seen them once so, we're going to have to try and deal with that now."
As for the Eagles, with this win they wrapped up their district with a 3-1 record and will now have to face Potosi on Wednesday in the first round of the playoffs. The Trojans have already defeated NMCC earlier this year but Pixley said they have been gearing up for this potential match-up for some time now.
"We got a chance to right our wrong against Potosi next week and that's something we've been looking forward to," Pixley said. "I know they (Potosi) are going to be ready to play. We've been showing our kids that film for the last couple weeks and we're going to play a better football game this time around."