On the strength of a 43-26 come-from-behind home-field victory last Friday night over Humphreys County High, the 4-6 Ruleville Central High Tigers will enter the State 3A Playoffs as the Region 3, No. 3 seed.
Their reward will be to travel roughly 200 miles to Kossuth High School in Northeast Mississippi for a 7 p.m. game.
The Kossuth High Aggies come into this game owning an 8-3 record which earned them a Region 1, No. 2 seeding.
“Kossuth is a very disciplined team”, said Ruleville Head Coach Mario Lane, “they are a ball-control type team and they run the ball really well.”
On that same night last week in which Ruleville Central was closing out their regular season with a victory, Kossuth High achieved the same result by way of a dominating 48-8 victory over Alcorn Central High School.
Historically, since 2004 this is the first-ever meeting between these two schools.
Should Ruleville Central claim this week’s game, they will play again next Friday versus the winner of the play-off opening game between Choctaw Central and Independence High School.
In last week’s victory over Humphreys County High, the Tigers shook off a 20-14 first half deficit by outscoring the Belzoni squad 29-6 in the second half to claim the game.
Using the four touchdown passing effort of Joseph Perez, who had a hand in 32 total points, the Tigers eventually took a permanent lead in the third period and then proceeded to add to their point cushion.
In the first half of play, it was the passing combination of Perez to Fabin Carter which accounted for the Tigers’ first half touchdowns.
Connecting in both the first and second quarters, the duo collaborated on scoring tosses covering 35 and 30 yards. Meanwhile, Jeremiah Surney connected on all five of his PAT kicks in this game to add to the Tigers’ point total.
However, in the third quarter the Tigers began to take over the game beginning with a Perez to Randarious Maxon TD pass which covered 33 yards. Maxon would end the game with three touchdowns scored on the Cowboys.
The Tigers would then take a 28-26 lead in the same quarter when Perez hit Maxon again with a scoring strike, on this occasion covering 15 yards.
While the Ruleville Central defense then proceeded to deny their end zone to the Cowboys, the Tigers’ offense used scoring runs by Maxon and Perez, covering three and 10 yards respectively, to record the final touchdowns of the game.
Rodrickus Appleberry would then post the final points of the game as he gathered in a Perez pass on the successful two point conversion attempt.
