By Morgan Bryce
Staff Reporter
The Beauregard Hornets treated both students and alumni to a big homecoming win Friday night, as they demolished region foe Talladega 47-6.
The Tigers were barraged by a heavy dose of Beauregard’s star running back and Mississippi State commit La’damian Webb throughout the night, who scored five of the Hornets’ seven overall rushing touchdowns.
“We just practiced well this week, and tonight I was looking for the holes, and my line blocked great. We struggled at times, and we got a lot of work to do, but Talladega played hard,” Webb said of his performance.
The Hornet defense, which had given up back-to-back games of 300-plus yards rushing, limited Talladega to 116 yards on the ground, and 158 total. Beauregard head football coach Rob Carter said he was pleased with the play of his defense.
“I’m really impressed with the defense … they did a great job of stopping them, especially their run game early, and that was one of our focuses this week, to get better on the defensive side. They did an excellent job tonight,” Carter said.
The Hornets took control of the game on their opening drive, countering heavy pressure from the Talladega defense with well-blocked running plays. A long Jaichis Holmes pass to Ja’Carious McKissic set up a two-yard waltz into the endzone for Webb.
A botched punt by Talladega on their first drive gave Beauregard prime field position, but a Ricardo Mendoza field goal missed wide left.
The defenses took turns causing three and outs for the next few possessions, but Webb and Holmes each added touchdowns in the second quarter to cap a 20-0 first-half lead.
During the halftime festivities, the Talladega marching band performed a Stevie Wonder tribute, and Beauregard announced Hailey Spratlin as its 2017 homecoming queen.
Webb permanently cemented the Beauregard lead with two third-quarter touchdowns, but Talladega’s D’juante Dickerson prevented a shutout with an 11-yard dash to cut the Hornet lead to 34-6.
Senior defensive back Jaquan Hodge jumped out of his shoes to pick off a pass on Talladega’s first fourth-quarter drive. That takeaway set up Webb’s fifth and final touchdown of the night, an 11-yard blast through the teeth of the Tiger defense to give the Hornets a 41-6 lead.
Carter started sending in second and third-string players for mop-up action, and sophomore Ashton Moss cashed in the Hornets’ final score with an 8-yard run.
One of Beauregard’s defensive leaders against Talladega, senior defensive end Spencer Prickett, said he liked the way he and his teammates attacked the Tiger offense.
“It was just hard work. A lot of practice, we focused a lot, did our assignments and we came out and played the way we wanted,” Prickett said.
With the win, the Hornets move to 2-1 (2-0 in region), and will face the 1-4 Northview Cougars in a non-region matchup next Friday night. Carter said he expects to see his team continue to improve and become more consistent in all phases of play.
“We’re going to look back on the film and see what we need to correct. We still want to get better on both sides of the ball, we want to do a better job of blocking on the perimeter, because we struggled there at times,” Carter said. “But other than that, we just want to continue to get better in every facet of the game.”
Kickoff against Northview is set for 7 p.m. BHS is located at 7343 Ala. Highway 51.