Football
Patrick Ochs 15y

Meridian ends Panola's 89-game win streak

JACKSON, Miss. -- Happy birthday, Tyler Russell.

The year Russell was born, 1990, was the last year Meridian High had won a state title in football, until now.

One day before Russell turned 18, his Meridian High Wildcats defeated the South Panola Tigers 26-20 in overtime, snapping the Tigers' record 89-game win streak.

"It's just unbelievable," Mississippi's Gatorade Player of the Year said. "This is unbelievable. We really wanted to beat that 89-game winning streak, but we really just wanted to get that state championship. Coach said we've got the team to do it and he's not one to brag, but he's been bragging on us all year and we got it done.

"That's a good team over there. You've got to be good to win 89 games, but we knew we had a team that could beat them."

Russell finished the game with 243 yards and one touchdown, completing 21 of 36 pass attempts.

"The streak," as it had been known across the Magnolia State, started in 2003 after Wayne County defeated the Tigers 21-14 in the Class 5A state championship game the year before.

Across Mississippi, you may not have known who the players or the coaches were, but you knew who South Panola was because of the streak.

Since their 2002 loss, the Tigers had reeled off 89 straight wins at capacity-filled stadiums that included five consecutive Class 5A state titles.

To put it simply, the Tigers are like rock stars in Batesville, Miss., where the school is located.

Earlier in the season, South Panola had shown it was vulnerable, however, squeaking by Tupelo High 14-13 after the Green Wave failed to convert a 2-point conversion with less than two minutes left, and rallying from a 14-10 deficit to defeat the Madison Central Jaguars in the Class 5A semifinals game.

The victory against the Jaguars, without the likes of senior linebacker David Conner and junior running back Nicholas Parker, set the Tigers up with the Meridian Wildcats (14-1), a rematch of the 2005 and 2006 Class 5A title games.

Both times the Tigers had come out victorious, winning 28-21 in 2006 and 52-14 in 2005.

When asked, both Meridian coach Larry Weems and South Panola coach Lance Pogue brushed off talk of the streak, saying it was more about winning a championship -- or yet another championship, as was the case with South Panola -- that motivated their squads.

"It wouldn't have mattered if they'd won 100 or one or 10, this was a championship game and we wanted to win a state championship, and they were the team we needed to beat," Weems said. "It didn't matter how many games they'd played or what they had done, we just wanted to win a championship."

"We don't even talk about the streak," Pogue said after the game. "We just play to win, play for the championship, and that's what everybody plays for. Tonight, we just didn't make it happen. You play to win. I never think about the winning streak, I thought about winning this state championship. I hadn't even thought about any kind of pressure or anything."

For the second straight game it was the Tigers who had to fight back at the end of the game, this time just to send the game into overtime.

With 7:29 remaining in the game, quarterback David Renfroe rolled to his left on a play-action pass and connected with tight end Taylor Rotenberry for a 3-yard touchdown conversion.

Renfroe, who also kicks and punts for the Tigers, was unable to convert the extra point, however, and the score remained knotted at 20.

Two possessions later Meridian gained control of the ball at their 44-yard line after stopping junior running back Nicholas Parker on a fourth-down attempt.

With good field position, Russell proceeded to complete 3 of 6 passes to set senior kicker Jett Miller up with a 30-yard field goal attempt.

Miller's kick sailed just right of the uprights with four seconds remaining, sending the game into overtime.

Meridian had the first possession in overtime. Following an 8-yard completion by Russell, junior James Barnett rumbled 2 yards into the end zone.

"I seen it all the way, I faked [the run] inside and bounced it outside," an excited Barnett said after the game, struggling to catch his breath.

The Wildcats missed the extra-point attempt, so their lead was 26-20.

On South Panola's possession, the Tigers elected to throw on first down since Parker was still hobbled and not running with his normal power and speed. But Renfroe's pass fell incomplete.

On second down, Parker rushed for just 4 yards, putting the Tigers on the 6-yard line with two chances to reach the end zone.

On third down, Renfroe scrambled to buy time for a receiver to become available, but was sacked by Jacoby Eason at the 20-yard line.

On fourth down, Renfroe was once again forced to scramble, running from sideline to sideline before eventually being pulled down a second time by Eason, ending the Tigers' streak.

"We had a bootleg on first down; I knew they'd be playing the run," Pogue said of the Tigers' plays in overtime. "We were just a step off, and I thought we had it. If we could have, we would have won it with an extra point. But you think things are going to work. If [you knew] they [wouldn't] work before you called them, you wouldn't do it, and that's part of it. They got pressure on us. We tried to throw the ball up to our sophomore receiver [Nicklos Brassell] and we got a little pressure."

"State's over now, our hats are off to them. It's sad to go out like this in my last game," Renfroe said. "It was tough. Overtime game, state championship game, can't get much tougher than that."

Even on a gimpy ankle, Parker still made his impact felt; the running back had been the workhorse on offense all year for South Panola. After a slow start in the first half (25 yards on 10 carries), Parker was able to get in more of a rhythm, rushing for 103 yards and a score on 24 carries in the second half and overtime.

Even though the Tigers' sideline was littered with heartbroken players after their overtime loss, it's hard to feel too bad for them.

After all, the last time they lost in the state championship game, they were able to piece together an incredible 89 straight victories.

With the likes of Parker, Brassell and others returning, the Tigers' cupboard is far from bare.

Patrick Ochs is the assistant sports editor at the Oxford Eagle in Oxford, Miss.

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