By Angie Ledbetter

The South Panola Tigers traveled to Louisville to take on the Wildcats from Louisville and Meridian in a jamboree on Friday.

The first battle between the Tigers and the Wildcats from Louisville where the Tigers won 20-7.

The first score of the night came from wide receiver Xavier Lee’s 21-yard pass reception from quarterback David Renfroe. The two point attempt failed with 5:42 on the clock.

The Wildcats answered with a nine-yard touchdown run and the PAT was good and Louisville led 7-6 at end of the first quarter.  Tiger Dominque Carothers scored from five yards out for the next touchdown and the two point conversion by Reuben Corley was good to give Tigers a 14-7 lead. Taylor Rotenberry scored on a completed pass from Renfroe. The PAT failed and the Tigers led 20-7.

The Meridian Wildcats came out fighting and scoring early with 9:15 on the clock in the first quarter on a touchdown run. In the second quarter, the Wildcats scored with 6:23 left in the game on a long pass play to give them the 14-0 victory.

Tiger head coach Lance Pogue told the team after the jamboree was over that they got some good work in.

“Now the real deal starts on Monday,” Pogue said. “We did a lot of good things down here and we did some not so good. We’re going to look at the film and get all of that corrected.  Guys it’s on now and we’ve got to get right in a hurry. It’s going to take every one of us pulling together. I’ll tell you right now, no one is going to roll over and give us anything. We’re going to have to fight for it. You’re going to get everybody’s best shot starting next week so get ready for it! One other thing, there is going to be some people talking about Meridian beating us 14-0 but that doesn’t matter. It’s a scrimmage.  We got to worry about ourselves.  If they can make it, we’ll take care of our end and we’ll try it again December 7.”

Renfroe said, “We came out a little tired the second game. The thing about this jamboree is that we’re showing them limited plays. Most teams think we’re coming out here and showing every play but we’re not. Meridian came out ready, but I think they were just fired up because we beat them two years straight for the state championship. We’re ready for anybody now and we start the season next Friday. Hopefully they’ll get a taste of us in the state championship.”

Parker  said, he was satisfied with his performance but admits everybody has some work to do this week.

“I’ve got confidence that we’re going to ready for Friday,” he said.

Lee felt that since Meridian was well-rested, that was the difference in the game.

Carothers said they played a good game against Meridian but did not expect them to come out playing like that.

“We were prepared for it but we didn’t expect them to do it in a scrimmage game,” Carothers said. “I guess since they knew their starters only had one quarter to play, they came out intensified also and did that.”

Pogue said, “We’ll go back and see what we need to work on.  We’ll build on the good things and try to correct some things that need to be corrected.”

He saw spots in the young offensive line and secondary that needed some work.

“We got to bring them along but we have time and we’re going to get better every week,” he said. “I thought the younger plays did good. There is no sub for experience. The only way to do it is get in there and do it. We’re going to have some growing pains along the way with some inexperienced guys but I think we’ll be the kind of team that will get better by the week.”

Pogue said this week they are just going to be looking forward to the 29th, going to Vicksburg and “get off to a good start hopefully our first game.”

Kickoff for Friday’s game is 8:30 p.m. following the first part of the doubleheader evening with Clarksdale and Warren Central at 6 p.m.