Portageville remains unbeaten with 'ugly' road win over Chaffee

CHAFFEE -- Getting the win was the main thing.

How they looked doing it was another.

Behind senior tailback Daniel Allen, a banged up Portageville Bulldogs team continued their resurgence Friday night getting by the Chaffee Red Devils, 21-6, at Chaffee High School to remain perfect on the season.

Portageville is 4-0 to start the season for the first time since 2002, where they finished 9-2 and made it to the state quarterfinals.

"It was probably a D-minus," Allen said about their performance. "It was ugly. It was an ugly game, but, that happens. It's better to have a bad game and get the win than have a bad game and lose."

Portageville overcame six fumbles and two turnovers. They also had to deal with an abundance of injuries that reached from their stable of running backs to their center on the offensive line.

"(Chaffee) outplayed us tonight," Portageville head coach Jeff Bullock said. "They had more heart than we did. We were just fortunate that we could still get a win.

"If you want to know why we struggled, take a look at that other sideline over there," Bullock said while motioning towards Chaffee.

Allen shouldered a load usually meant for four running backs to carry.

The Bulldogs' Wing-T running attack, that went for 241 yards, is designed to take advantage of their stable of backs they have at their disposal. But with a few of them nursing injuries and cramps, Allen turned Portageville into a one-back system.

The 6-0, 185-pound senior led the Bulldogs with 161 rushing yards on a whopping 31 carries -- far more than Portageville wants any one running back to have.

"We had to," Bullock said. "Everybody was banged up and hurt. We went from thinking we were deep and had a stable to having one kid healthy. Daniel was even banged up, but he gutted it out for us."

Dominique Walker, who is part of Portageville's usual balanced rushing attack, carried the ball nine times for 61 yards and a touchdown. But in the second half, Walker, a 6-3, 190-pound senior, began to cramp up which limited his touches.

Deon Foster, who played mostly on defense, ran twice for 20 yards and Denzell Simmons was out.

Although they prefer to spread their carries, Allen has long been prepared for this type of scenario if it happened to arise.

"In the offseason I really worked hard to where if we ever had a situation where someone got hurt or someone couldn't play, I would be able to take that load and put the team on my back if I have to," Allen said. "I'm happy with whatever. If I get five carries, two carries or 50 carries, as long as we win that's what matters."

Allen rushed for 5.1 yards per carry and scored two of the Bulldogs' three rushing touchdowns.

He reached pay dirt in the first quarter in just under two minutes to quickly put his team ahead by seven. Later in the second, Allen put Portageville up 21-6.

"Daniel probably doesn't get the credit he deserves probably because of our history and the lack of success we've had," Bullock said. "I know everybody talks about the Monroe kid (Caruthersville's Darrell Monroe), and he's a great running back, but I guarantee you, he might not be right there as far as name recognition, but he works just as hard as anyone that we've got."

Chaffee, who Portageville had lost four of their last six meetings to prior to Friday night, broke through in the second quarter when quarterback, Peyton Montgomery who returned to action after being off a week due to an injury, scurried in from three yards out to make it a one possession game.

Allen's second rushing touchdown came just three minutes after.

"We were right there," Chaffee head coach Charlie Vickery said. "We did a heck of a job against them and even shut them out in the second half. We don't have moral victories, but our kids are playing extremely hard and are that close from getting there."

The Red Devils (1-3) had a chance to make it an even closer game just before the half.

With his team driving and the clock dwindling, Peyton Montgomery was stopped at the three-yard line with under 15 seconds remaining.

Chaffee had no timeouts and the sideline was motioning for their quarterback to hurry to the line and spike the ball around the 10 second mark. Signals were crossed and Montgomery tried running it in only to be stopped at the 1-yard line.

"We should have got the ball in there. But, that was my fault, we were out of timeouts," Vickery said. "That would have been huge. We had some opportunities in the second half too, but we didn't get it in."

The Red Devils did most of their damage in the air on the arm of Montgomery. The sophomore threw for 116 yards on 9 of 21 passing.

Chaffee, who was without the services of their No. 1 wide receiver, Layton Tenkhoff, due to an injury, rushed for 76 yards. Montgomery rushed for 50 himself on 14 carries.

Portageville quarterback, Bryce Wallace, completed five passes on eight attempts and threw for 38 yards.

"I'm tickled to be 4-0," Bullock said, "but sometimes 4-0's a little misleading too."

First Quarter

P -- Daniel Allen 4 run (Hunter Cook kick), 10:05

P -- Dominique Walker 34 run (Cook kick), 1:35

Second Quarter

C -- Peyton Montgomery 3 run (pass fail), 6:31

P -- Daniel Allen 7 run (Cook kick), 3:07

Rushing -- Portageville, Dominique Walker 9-61, Daniel Allen 31-161, Landon Delisle 1-(-1), Bryce Wallace 6-0, Deon Foster 2-20. Chaffee, Peyton Montgomery 14-50, Charlie Montgomery 11-23, Jimmy Golden 1-1, Devon Yahn 1-2, Thomas Robbins 3-0.

Passing -- Portageville, Bryce Wallace 5-8-0 38. Chaffee, Peyton Montgomery 9-21-0 116.

Receiving -- Portageville, Dominique Walker 1-15, Daniel Allen 1-(-7), Deon Foster 1-10, Hunter Cook 2-20. Chaffee, Jimmy Golden 4-35, Devon Yahn 4-72, Thomas Robinson 1-9.