REBELS RISING: Coach says team showing maturity as season continues

Published 12:53 am Saturday, October 11, 2014

Adams County Christian School’s Lester Wells dives across the goal line before Amite School Center’s David Leyendecker can make the tackle. Wells made the second touchdown of the game. At right, ACCS’ Parker Rymer sacks Amite School Center’s Davin Booty in the opening seconds of the ballgame. Rymer, Wells, Torrey Smith and Trey Fleming each had a touchdown in the first quarter of the Rebel’s 41-0 homecoming win. (Ben Hillyer / The Natchez Democrat)

Adams County Christian School’s Lester Wells dives across the goal line before Amite School Center’s David Leyendecker can make the tackle. Wells made the second touchdown of the game. At right, ACCS’ Parker Rymer sacks Amite School Center’s Davin Booty in the opening seconds of the ballgame. Rymer, Wells, Torrey Smith and Trey Fleming each had a touchdown in the first quarter of the Rebel’s 41-0 homecoming win. (Ben Hillyer / The Natchez Democrat)

David King wasted no time getting his top skill players the ball in a 41-0 homecoming win against Amite School Center.

By the end of the first quarter, Parker Rymer, Lester Wells, Torrey Smith and Trey Fleming each had a touchdown for Adams County Christian School.

“We wanted to get the ball to our skill players early,” King said. “Then, we were able to get some young guys in there.”

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Rymer made an immediate impact. On the first defensive possession of the game, Rymer dropped Amite School Center quarterback Davin Booty for an 11-yard loss. Rymer followed that up with a 41-yard touchdown reception on the first offensive play of the game, and then, blocked a punt on the very next series, affecting the game in all three phases.

“Parker Rymer set the tone early,” King said. “That was all in the opening minutes of the game. It was pretty impressive.”

Woods connected with Lester Wells for a 31-yard touchdown pass to put the Rebels up 13-0 with a little less than seven minutes to play in the first. Amite was playing man-to-man on ACCS, begging for the Rebels to challenge them vertically.

“We’ve got some automatic calls for when they bump and run us, and they played us with no safety so we got some big plays out of it,” King said.

The Rebels’ scoring frenzy was just getting started.

After an Amite three-and-out, Torrey Smith capped off a 66-yard drive with a 19-yard touchdown run, followed by a 52-yard reception by Wells, who made shifty moves in the secondary to put ACCS in the red zone. Woods completed 3 of 3 for 124 yards and two touchdowns.

“It could have been sharper,” said Woods, who critiqued his timing on plays during the game.

Smith intercepted Booty on the next series, and after nearly shaking the entire Amite offense, Smith broke free down the sideline and scored. Unfortunately for Smith, the referees blew the play dead as he was fighting to break a tackle on the sideline. Smith said he didn’t go out of bounds, and was determined to score.

“I heard Coach King in the background saying, ‘get down, get down,’ and I was like, ‘Nope, I’m not doing it,’” Smith said.

After Fleming took the snap and went up the gut for a 30-yard score, ACCS pulled ahead 27-0 at the end of the first quarter. In the second, the running clock began and the reserves hit the field.

“We showed leadership,” Fleming said. “For this game, we wanted more of the future to score, because that’s our future.”

Chisum Mardis punched in the next touchdown, and Sam Butler scored on a 10-yard rush in the third quarter. Butler led the Rebels in rushing with 69 yards. Before Butler scored the last Rebel touchdown, King asked the referee to throw a flag on a play near the goal line. The referee called holding on sophomore Chris Sikes, and after Butler scored, Sikes ran over to the sidelines, complaining about the call.

“That holding call was a fluke,” Sikes said.

“Ain’t no fluke, son,” King answered.

King did his best to run the clock and keep his Rebels from running up the score, leading to a scoreless fourth quarter. Following the game, King was proud of his team’s maturity, avoiding the homecoming hangover.

“I’m more happy with the way they acted when the young guys got in there,” King said. “We’re showing maturity, and I think we’re ready for the push to get in there and make a run at this thing if we stay healthy.”

Pete Guedon led the team in tackles with nine.

After sitting out three weeks of action, Christopher White exited the game with a shoulder injury.

With the win, ACCS improves to 7-1 on the season, and though the Rebels’ latest victory was won by a large deficit, Smith said ACCS has to keep getting better.

“We won off of just being talented, and we should have executed better fundamentally,” Smith said.