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'Wave turn 8 turnovers into points
PORTAGEVILLE -- Although Portageville suffered their second loss of the season to the Malden Greenwave, the Portageville Bulldogs started to gain some heart, but too little too late.
Malden forced eight turnovers and scored every single point off a Portageville miscue on its way to a 52-6 victory at Vic Reaves Athletic Field.
"Defense was very opportunistic tonight," Malden coach Joel Wyatt said. "We had a lot of big hits, a lot of great special teams work in the second half and just overall they played well."
The Green Wave (3-0) scored on their first three drives to build a 24-point lead before the end of the first quarter.
Portageville, meanwhile, had three turnovers and four fumbles on their first five plays. Only one play was snapped cleanly and one was recovered by the Bulldogs during that span while the other three were knocked loose and picked up by Malden and turned into points.
"I quit counting after six,"Portageville coach Jeff Bullock said of his team's turnovers. "When you start giving a team like that the ball, you should expect to be down 24-, 38-0 in the first half.
"We played a juggernaut today."
Two plays after the opening kickoff, the Bulldogs committed their first turnover. Dee Triplett's hit jarred free the ball from Portageville running back Lamar Alexander and Bryce Nelson recovered for Malden.
Junior quarterback Pete Brown picked up 28 yards on two carries before scoring from 10 yards out for an 8-0 lead.
Brown scored for the second time in 68 seconds on a 16-yard run, one play after Portageville coughed up the football on the first play of the ensuing drive at the 9-minute mark.
The Bulldogs got their first dose of positive yardage after Brown's second score when quarterback Connor Barham completed a swing pass to Ryan Priggel. But just as he turned to go up field, Priggel fumbled setting up Malden at the Portageville 44-yard line.
Five plays later, Tray Stevenson ran in a 35-yard touchdown to push the lead to 24-0 with 5:19 left in the first.
Portageville was left with just 3 yards from scrimmage in the opening quarter. The Bulldogs also had a punt blocked in the final three minutes of the first but managed to stop the Green Wave on a fourth-and-goal at their own 25.
The Bulldogs picked up 7 yards on two plays to start their next drive, but opened the second quarter with the same theme when Malden linebacker Gavin Bristow picked up his third fumble recovery and returned it 28 yards for a touchdown. The sophomore earned himself a game ball after recovering four fumbles, including one more in the second half.
"We were all amped up, it wasn't just me," Bristow said. "That was the main speech before the game, that we had to work as a team."
Portageville's sixth fumble, which the Bulldogs recovered, set up a fourth-and-15 at its own 25 before the seventh led to more points for Malden.
As the Bulldogs lined up to boot it away, a bad snap sailed over their punter's head and into the end zone for a safety. It was a small victory for Bullock and the Bulldogs, who were glad to see it wasn't another touchdown.
"When a safety's one of the highlights of your night, it's not a good night for your team," Bullock said.
The highlight's didn't last much longer as Nelson returned the kickoff for a 60-yard touchdown 13 seconds later to put Malden up 38-0 10 minutes before halftime.
"Open gaps for days," Nelson said with a smile. "We planned it all throughout the week with our blocking so that the gaps would be there."
Malden stopped smiling at the break, however. Despite being up 38-0 at halftime, their commanding lead was overshadowed by the glaring mistakes they made. The Green Wave were whistled for six penalties on one drive in the final five minutes of the first half, finished with 12 penalties for 116 yards and heard about it from Wyatt in the locker room.
"There were way too many penalties, there was a lack of discipline and I'm very disappointed," Wyatt said. "It wasn't, 'great job we're up 38-0 at halftime', I can tell you that. You're not going to advance very far when you play undisciplined football like that."
The Green Wave did remain disciplined on the defensive side of the ball. Bristow recovered his final fumble of the game five minutes into the second half, which set up Nelson's second touchdown, a 5-yard run, six plays later.
Cordell Kilgore set up the touchdown run a minute earlier with a 36-yard catch from Brown, which he took to the 1-yard line. After the kickoff, Kilgore picked off Barham and returned it for a 25-yard touchdown to cap Malden's scoring.
Sophomore Tye Miller led Malden's second unit, coming up with an interception to open the fourth quarter. The Green Wave couldn't convert it into points, however, as Portageville ended the night on a high note with a 35-yard touchdown pass to Pearson with 1.3 seconds to play.
The Bulldogs finished with 194 total yards.
"Defensively and offensively I think our kids finally started trying to compete," Bullock said. "It was way too late in the ballgame but you like seeing that effort."
Portageville now, 1-2 will travel to Piggott this Friday, September 9.