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By Fred Guarino

The Lowndes Signal

The Lowndes Academy Rebels defeated the Patrician Saints in a non-regional “slobber knocker“ 7-0 at home, Friday night, Oct. 13, to improve to 3-4 overall and remain 0-3 in regional play.

“Good old-fashioned slobber knocker” was the way Lowndes Academy head football coach Bob Taylor described his team’s home win over Patrician.

He said, “It was a great football game. Patrician has got a quality club. We’re probably going to see them again in three weeks in the playoffs. So, if this was a precursor… what we saw a while ago… it’s going to be a heck of a ballgame in three weeks when we go down there.”

While Taylor said Buddy Johnson played a great game on defense, he said, Friday night the whole defense played great “defending everything.”

“To shut out that bunch is a pretty big deal,” Taylor said. But he said, “We’ve got some work to do offensively to get some things straight. But I’ll take it, and we’ll move on and do what we’ve got to do from there.”

Offensively Taylor acknowledged the good play of Jon Johnson and Mason McCurdy running the ball, as well as John Morgan.

Taylor said to make the playoffs, his Rebels have to defeat Sparta next week on the road. If they do that, they will face Patrician again. If not, “We’re out,” he said.

The only score of this game came at the 5:50 mark of the first quarter when Mason McCurdy called his own number and raced 47 yards for a touchdown. Jon Johnson kicked the extra point, and that was it.

The rest this encounter was the afore mentioned “slobber knocker

While the scoreboard didn’t reflect it, Lowndes actually put together 228 yards of total offense while limiting Patrician to a total offense of 63 yards.

The Rebels got 57 yards passing and 171 rushing while holding the Saints to 21 yards through the air and 42 yards on the ground.

Lowndes also made 13 first downs to just four for the Saints.

Each team suffered six penalties for nearly identical yardage. Lowndes received 48 yards in penalties to 51 for Patrician.

McCurdy led the Rebels in rushing with 18 carries for 92 yards and a touchdown.

Also for the Rebels, Jon Johnson had 12 carries for 46 yards, John Morgan had three carries for 21 and Daniel Janes had four carries for 12 yards.

Brian Rayburn led the Rebels in receiving with two catches for 24 yards while Jon Johnson had one catch for 12 yards and Buddy Johnson had one catch for 12 yards.

Cole Crook led the Rebels on defense with seven total tackles, including two sacks and four tackles for loss.

He was followed by Buddy Johnson five tackles including two sacks and two tackles for loss, Daniel Callaway with three tackles including one assist and one tackle for loss. And Landon Hooper had three tackles including one tackle for loss.

The Rebels travel to face Sparta in a regional encounter Friday, Oct. 20 to determine if they make the playoffs or not and end the season at Coosa Valley Academy in a non-regional game on Friday, Oct. 27.