Kennett tames Bulldogs

Saturday, September 29, 2007
Kennett's Greg Bowles (8) is grabbed by the jersey by Portageville's Trey Cooper (left) during the second quarter of Friday's football game. (SMNS)

Indians torch the Portageville defense for 448 total yards

KENNETT -- Last Monday, Kirk Welch challenged his Kennett Indians football team to come out and put Portageville away quickly Friday night.

The Tribe was up to the challenge, to say the least.

Blake Parr passed for a career-high 204 yards and Kennett racked up 448 yards of total offense to take a 46-7 victory over the Bulldogs at Metz Cherry Stadium.

"The kids came out for the first time this year and took care of business early," Welch, the Indians' head coach, said. "We talked about doing that all week -- good teams, when they are playing teams that they should put away, they need to come out and put them away. We did that tonight."

Said Parr: "We tried to do our best from the very beginning," said Parr. "We stepped up to Coach Welch's challenge."

The Tribe (4-1) got off to a dubious start, fumbling the ball away to Portageville at the Bulldogs' one-yard line on the game's opening drive, but after holding Portageville to one first down and forcing a punt, the rout was on.

The Indians drove to the Portageville 19 but penalties had them facing a third-and-30 when Parr hooked up with Jarvis Finley on a 39-yard scoring strike with 5:42 in the opening period for a 6-0 lead.

After forcing yet another Bulldogs punt, Kennett needed just five plays to drive 55 yards, finding the end zone on a Demetrius Childress 15-yard scamper with 2:34 to go in the first quarter. Tyler Daugherty's point after made it 13-0.

The Tribe broke the game open in the second quarter, scoring on its first four possessions and racking up 195 yards of offense in the period to put the game away.

Parr scored on a six-yard keeper with just over 10 minutes to go before the break to make it 19-0, then added a five-yard scoring run in the final minute of the half to make it 39-0 at the intermission.

However, Parr did most of his damage Friday through the air. After throwing for 227 yards in his first three games of the season, Parr had almost that many by halftime Friday, completing his first six passes on his way to a 9-

for-13 night.

"Blake made some better decisions tonight," Welch said. "We've still got some fundamental things to work on, but we worked all week on the passing game and I felt like the kids ran a lot crisper routes. We've still got some work to do, obviously, but I felt like the offensive line did a great job and we had some open receivers that made the plays."

Said Finley: "He hit the receivers. I think he'll continue to do that. Hopefully we catch the ball, go with it and get the W."

Sandwiched in between Parr's scoring runs was Childress' second TD of night -- a six-yard run with 8:14 left in the half -- and a one-yard plunge by fullback Tevin Hampton 3:50 to go.

Childress finished the game with 135 yards rushing, his third straight 100-

yard game in a row.

"He's aggravating but he does the job," said Welch. "We've got to get some of his aiming points cleaned up and get him doing a better job of setting his blocks up and letting plays develop. But Demetrius is going to give you everything he's got every down. It's hard to stay aggravated with him very long."

Kennett racked up 379 yards of offense by halftime, averaging over 11 yards per play in the opening 24 minutes.

"We came out here and coach said, 'Put a big-time press on them,'" Kennett tackle Danny Merritt said. "We just came out blocking real good, the backs hits the hole real hard and the defense stepped up."

The Tribe made it 46-0 when Devin Guyton ran 16 yards for his first varsity score with just under 10 minutes left in the game.

Portageville finally got on the board when Mikey Johnson broke a 23-yard scoring run with 3:13 to go.

The Bulldogs finished with just 98 yards of offense, 78 coming in the second half after Kennett began subbing out most of its starters.

Greg Bowles bounced back from an off game last week at East Prairie to lead the receiving corps with 81 yards on three catches, while Finley added two catches for 64 yards, Hampton had three receptions for 32 yards and Cameron Conder added a 27-yard catch.

"I know I had to improve because I messed up (last week) ... " said Bowles. "After that first catch that I caught, I knew it was going good by then because I (forgot) all the negativity from last week and just added on to the positive this week."

D. J. Birdwell led Portageville's offense with 53 yards rushing on 15 carries, while Johnson added 34 yards on 13 totes. T.J. Smith added 10 yards as well.

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