Another chapter in the Mississippi Delta Community College Trojans’ rivalry with Coahoma Community College went to the Tigers with a 17-13 win last Saturday. The Tigers’ win improved their record to 3-2. The Trojans fell to 0-3 on the year. MDCC Head Coach Jeff Tatum noted his young offense had problems with Coahoma’s defense.
“We played good enough to win but bad enough to lose. We’re playing with a young quarterback (Freddie Byrd) and a young offensive line. With inconsistent practices with COVID-19, we go a while then stop. Go a while then stop. They’re getting better every week but Coahoma did a good job of changing their defense. We’ll work on it this week and hopefully we’ll have a good week of offense. Hopefully, we’ll get back to the continuity of our first game when we had 300 yards passing and almost 100 yards rushing against Northeast.”
The Tigers took an early 3-0 lead but the Trojans responded when Kelvin Smith picked up his first collegiate touchdown on a 34-yard TD run. Corblin McGinn added the PAT to put the Trojans ahead, 7-3, midway through the first quarter.
Coahoma would take a 10-7 advantage with 3:38 left in the second quarter. Neither team would score the rest of the first half.
The Trojans retook the lead with 7:33 left in the third quarter when freshman quarterback Freddie Byrd connected with LaDarius Moore in the back of the end zone for a seven-yard touchdown strike. The point after attempt was blocked, but MDCC still led, 13-10.
The Tigers would add a touchdown late in the contest to take a 17-13 lead. Neither team could find a way to get into the end zone the rest of the game. Coach Tatum called out linebacker Stemarion Edwards and sophomore defensive ends Ken'Terious Owens and KeShaun Blackmon as standouts in the Coahoma game.
MDCC returns to action on Thursday, as the Trojans will take on Northwest Community College at 7 p.m. in Senatobia.
The Trojans met the nationally ranked Rangers earlier and lost 26-9. Coach Tatum is getting familiar with preparing for them and may have a few wrinkles for them.
“We feel confident. This is the third time we’ve prepared for them. We prepared for them as the opening game but that got canceled. Then we played them here (homecoming) and now we are going up there. Hopefully, our guys will go up there and execute our game plan,” he said. “We may have a thing or two for them.”
The Trojans welcome back Special Teams Coordinator and Defensive Back Coach C.J. Hampton on Monday as he was quarantined for the past two weeks.
