NEW ORLEANS, La. — The No. 1 seed Ferriday High School Trojans defeated the No. 2 seed Many High School Tigers 56-17 Friday afternoon at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome to win the LHSAA Class 2A State Championship.
After Many took a 3-0 lead just past the midway point of the first quarter on a 30-yard field goal by Trotter Lafollette, Byron Milligan’s 35-yard run to the Many 41-yard line on what was the final play of the first quarter led to Kobe Dillon’s 17-yard touchdown pass to Elijah White with 10:39 to go in the second quarter. Even though the try for two was no good, Ferriday (14-1) took the lead for good at 6-3.
Later on in the second quarter, the Trojans’ defense forced a fumble that Roosevelt Davis recovered and ran back to the Tigers’ 31-yard line. That led an 11-yard TD run by Dillon with 5:40 left. Dillon threw a shuffle pass to Blake Tarver for the two-point conversion and a 14-3 Trojans advantage.
One play after the Trojans forced a turnover on downs, Dillon connected with White on a 45-yard TD pass for a 20-3 lead with 4:24 left in the second quarter. Dillon scored on a 13-yard run with 28 seconds to go until halftime, just one play after he connected with Milligan on a pass that went 83 yards.
Ferriday led 34-3 on a two-yard run by Tevyn Byrd at the 7:08 mark of the third quarter before Many scored its first touchdown of the game on a 15-yard run by Terrence Williams with 2:42 left in the same quarter. The Tigers scored on a two-point conversion run to make it 34-11.
But the Trojans responded with a 19-yard scoring pass from Dillon to Justin Burns with 52 seconds remaining in the third quarter to go up 40-11.
Milligan had another big play, this time a 35-yard run early in the fourth quarter that set up his three-yard TD run three plays later with 9:59 left in the game. He added the two-point conversion run to give Ferriday at 48-11 lead.
Williams scored on a three-yard run for Many (11-4) to make it 48-17 with 1:52 left. But instead of taking a few knees and letting the clock run out even after returning the ensuing kickoff to its own 49-yard line, the Trojans used just 30 seconds as Milligan scored on an eight-yard run and Burns scored on the two-point conversion run to put an icing on the Trojans’ march to the state championship.
See the original article by Patrick Jones at The Natchez Democrat
