By Fred Guarino
The Lowndes Signal

The Central High Lions found themselves the victim of some “angry birds” falling to the New Brockton Gamecocks 48-24 in a regional contest at home Friday night.

While the Lions started and finished strong, this contest was never really close.

The Gamecocks struck early to go up 6-0. And the Lions responded with a 9-yard touchdown pass reception by Marcus Flowers and 2-point conversion by quarterback Alex Bryant to take an 8-6 lead at the 7:54 mark of the first quarter.

Unfortunately for the Central seniors, who were playing the last home game of their high school football careers, it was all Gamecocks from there as the visitors led 22 to 8 at the end of the first quarter and 42-8 at the half.

T.J. Saffold put some spark back into the home crowd, however, when he scored from 20 yards out just as the third quarter ended and Ladarious Thicklin added the two-point conversion to make a 42-16 contest.

But the Gamecocks scored early in the fourth quarter to go up 48-16, and it took a desperate last minute drive capped by a pass from Saffold to Flowers and a two-point conversion Markeith Gordon to make it a 48-24 final.

Following the game frustrated Central head football coach James Bibb said his Lions have to play “a complete ballgame.” He said, “Our new motto, even for next year, is everything counts. Every player on the team counts. Every fan counts. Every day at practice counts.”
He said, “We’re not good enough to come out and play every other play… We’re not good enough to dig holes for ourselves.”

Bibb said, “Hats off to New Brockton. They were the better team tonight.”

He did say of the play by his team at the beginning and at the end of the contest, “Every time we get something positive, I’m proud of them. We started off strong and we ended up strong but in between we struggled.”

New Brockton head coach Jim Bob Striplin said the Central program has class kids who are well mannered and who play hard and his team was fortunate to get a win.

Striplin recognized the play of his senior quarterback Shay Hobbs, Jahari Brown, a freshman running back, junior running back Kendal Truitt, Marquise Neal, who had a cou0ple of big catches and his offensive line.
Central falls to 1-7, 1-5 while New Brockton improved to 4-4, 3-3.
The Lions will travel to play their arch rival the Calhoun Tigers at Calhoun next Friday night.