By Wes Ming

The Vicksburg post

TALLULAH — Mother Nature provided a steady dose of drizzling rain in Tallulah Friday night at Farmers Field.

Tensas Academy’s offense provided the thunder and lightning in the form of running back tandem Jim Lentz and Hunter Hale.

Lentz and Hale, along with a few big pass plays from senior quarterback Bennett Schauf, surged the Chiefs to a 44-14 gridiron win over the Trojans. Lentz and Hale provided the bulk of the 255 rushing yards for Tensas. Lentz finished the game with 147 yards on 19 carries and four touchdowns. Hale added 90 yards on nine carries and a score.

Lentz, a bruising 5-foot, 9-inch, 200-pound fullback also hauled in a 55-yard touchdown pass from Schauf in the third quarter.

The Trojans seemed to have a rough time weathering the storm of Tensas’ dual threat at running back, giving up nearly seven yards per carry for the game.

Tallulah started the game strong, stopping Tensas on its first drive.

Sebe Wise recovered a Hale fumble on the Tensas 30 yard line to set up the first of two first-half Tallulah scoring drives. The Trojans needed only four plays on their first drive as running back Cody Landrem ran it in for the score from 12 yards out to put the the hosts a 7-0 lead.

Tensas returned on their next drive, taking the ball 66 yards down the field for their first score on a 6 yard run by Lentz. The 2-point conversion attempt failed, and the score was 7-6. Lentz, a junior, routinely drew two to three, and sometimes more, Trojan defenders to bring him down. The game seesawed throughout the second quarter with both teams adding touchdowns to bring the score to 14-14 with just under a minute to play.

Then came the onslaught. With 50 seconds to go until halftime and the score knotted at 14, Lentz broke loose for a 64 yard run up the middle

to put the Chiefs within 18 yards of the goal line. Two penalties gave

Tensas the ball at the 4 yard line with 13 seconds to play in the half.

Lentz burst through for a 2-yard score to put the Chiefs ahead 22-14 at

halftime.

Tensas Coach Joe Coats felt his team just wore out the Trojan defense

by pounding the ball the entire second half. “We didn’t execute well

in the first half other than the big run by Lentz to close out the

half,” he said. “We had better play calling in the second half and cut

down our turnovers and just wore them down.”

Lentz’s 55 yard touchdown reception, his fourth rushing TD of the

night, along with a one yard touchdown run by Hale with just over three

minutes to play wound up being all the Chiefs needed to achieve their

second win of the season.

“The way we play is ball control and keeping our defense off the

field,” Lentz said.