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Aberdeen claims 2-3A title
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Anthony Bean of Aberdeen dives after Nettleton quarterback Anthony Franklin in the first half. (Brandon Speck)
ABERDEEN - The Daily Journal's No. 2 ranked Class 3A Aberdeen Bulldogs got off to a slow start Thursday, but a fast finish wrapped up the Division 2-3A title and a top seed when the playoff begin a week from today.
Senior running back Jamerson Love, a Mississippi State commitment, scored on a 20 yard pass from Aaron Andrews as Aberdeen led 8-0 at halftime, then rushed for two more scores on runs of 50 and 58 yards in the second half in a 30-6 win against the No. 4 Nettleton Tigers.
Moved to Thursday because of heavy rain expected today, it was the fifth time Aberdeen (9-2, 5-0) has held an opponent to single digits, two shutouts.
"I can't say enough about the defense. We gave up one play the whole ballgame," Aberdeen coach Chris Duncan said, "The defense was dominant all night against a good offensive team."
Nettleton (8-3, 3-2), which gets the third seed and will hit the road in a playoff opener, avoided the shutout when quarterback Anthony Franklin scored on a 55 yard fourth quarter run.
On its next possession, Nettleton turned the ball over on downs at their own 42 yard line and Victor Hodges scored on a 42 yard run for a 30-6 lead. Erik Buchanan, Hodges and Decedrick Quinn had two-point conversions for the Bulldogs, winners eight straight games.
“You play poorly, you get beat. That's all it comes down to. We did not play well,” said Nettleton coach Jack Clark. “We gave up too many big plays and didn't play very well on offense at all, didn't execute at all.”
Love, a defensive back on defense, finished with 96 yards on 12 carries, under 100 because of two bad direct snaps in the first half. Andrews was 9 of 16 passing for 176 yards, a touchdown and an interception.
"We beat a good ball team," Duncan said. "(Jamerson's) been a big-play guy for three years. We've got several guys like that. I can't say enough about him and he played well tonight on defense too."
Thanks for the concerns. Must have been in the end zone and saw that pass as a run. Tough seeing through the lens sometimes. Stats came from Aberdeen's guys in the box, so feel free to call them if you like.
Glad you're reading so closely. I'll probably be able to pay you more than the Commercial Dispatch is paying if you want to do some contract work as a proof reader.
Let me know anytime. Minichino sending you to the Aberdeen game Friday?
Jamerson Love did score three times against Nettleton, but not on two runs and one pass as you have reported. Actually, Love scored once on a run and twice on passes from Aaron Andrews.
As a result, if you take away the 58-yard pass you erroneously reported as a run from your figure of 96 rushing yards on 12 carries for Love, that would mean he rushed for 38 yards on 11 carries (still not factual, but again, your figures).
Conversely, Aaron Andrews’ passing yardage wasn’t 176 yards as you reported, but 234 yards if you include the 58-yard pass to Love which you said was a run (again, your figures). Also, Andrews actually completed 14 of 23 passes (five to Buchanan, five to Pargo, two to Love and two to Devauld) for two touchdowns, not 9 of 16 and one touchdown as you reported.
If memory serves me correctly, this is the second time this season you hit the trifecta and shortchanged Andrews simply because you apparently are unable to distinguish the difference between a run and a pass. Previously, you erroneously reported he had four touchdown passes in the Houston game when, in fact, he actually threw for five TDs.
Most anybody might make a mistake like this once, but twice in the past month or so makes me wonder if you really do know the difference between a run and a pass. As you are a sports editor, I would think you do, so my take on the problem is you aren’t very good at multi-tasking so you need to pay attention to the game more closely and stop all that twittering.
On a completely different note unrelated to twittering, take a good, hard look at the following quote you printed from Smithville coach Bubba Tacker and see if anything jumps out at you like it did to me: “At the time, I was pretty upset with the way we were playing, but it was good for the boys to show them ‘if you don’t play ball, you’re going to get your tale beat,’” Tacker said. Tale?
And then in another Smithville story, you wrote: “Okolona, ranked No. 2 behind Smithville in the Daily Journal's Small Schools poll, may be the quickest team the Seminoles have faced, but Adams expects the wet surface from today's rain to have an affect on that.” Might want to learn the difference between affect and effect.
One more thing, the Hatley folks aren’t real happy with you to start with, but you ruffled more than a few feathers when you downplayed their game against Walnut last week with the following: “On a lighter, but still important note, Hatley lost 13-7 against visiting Walnut tonight in the regualr (sic) season finale for both. A wn (sic) would have put Hatley in the playoffs for the first time in school history. The Tigers, 1-9 a year ago, finish 5-6 this season.” On a lighter note?
As to your column, there would be more space for “things that need to go in the newspaper that don’t make it” if the column was left out when there isn’t actually anything noteworthy to write about (like this week’s topic or Willie Nelson concerts and the like). And too, there would definitely be more advertising revenue if reporting errors, typos and misspelled words weren’t such a common occurrence.