North Panola hopes to return to the win column this week after falling to Calhoun City 30-20 last week in their home-opener as they travel to Lexington Friday to take on Holmes County Central in a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.

  The Cougars enter the game at 1-1 on the season while the No. 5 ranked Jaguars sport a 2-0 record after defeating Greenwood 28-18 in the season-opener and picking up a forfeit win over McComb last week.

  Holmes County is led by Trayveon Horton at wide receiver along with sophomores Clevaris Dixson and quarterback Keannan Palmer. South Alabama commitment Joseph Head anchors the Jaguar defense. 

North Panola counters with Deshawn Dugger, Jamarion Maddin, Kennland Lyons, Avery Callicut and Jatavious Blakely on the offensive line along with WR/DB M.J. Newson.

 The Cougars lead the series 1-0 after a wild 50-44 victory in overtime last year.

Last week (Sept. 2), North Panola fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter against Calhoun City and seemed to play catch up the rest of the game Friday.

The Cougars got on the board late in the first quarter as quarterback QD Walls hit Newson on a short pass that turned into a 42-yard touchdown. Walls then converted the two-point attempt with a pass to Ashton Clay.

The Cougars tied the game at 14-14 midway through the second quarter as Walls connected with JJ Harrell for a 32-yard scoring strike with the two-point conversion failing. 

Walls finished the night on a bum ankle with 10-for-23 passing for 161 yards and two touchdowns and one interception along with 89 yards on 12 carries and a eight-yard TD run in the fourth quarter. 

Harrell caught two passes for 39 yards before sitting out the second half after taking a huge hit in the third quarter.

 The backbreaker for North Panola came late in the first half as Calhoun City took advantage of a Cougar fumble and scored on a 30-yard touchdown run with eight seconds before halftime to take a 22-14 lead. 

The Wildcats put the game away with a 17-yard scoring run on the first play of the fourth quarter to make the score 30-14.

 “Calhoun City just wanted it more and played with a lot more heart than we did and that is on me. I’ve got to do a better job of coaching,” said North Panola head coach Randal Montgomery. “We are going to come in Monday morning and figure out what we did wrong and get it fixed.”

 A telling statistic of the game was Calhoun City’s 7-of-13 in third down conversions and two-of-three in fourth down opportunities.

 North Panola tallied 340 yards of total yards with 179 coming on the ground. Tray Hayes had a hard-earned 97 yards on 14 carries with Nehemiah Brown two carries for nine yards. 

Newson led the Cougars in receiving with 55 yards on three catches. Daveon Williams added three catches for 43 while Colten Simpson had two catches for 25 yards.

Defensively, Walls added an interception while Jamarion Maddin recovered a fumble.