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By Fred Guarino
The Lowndes Signal
While the Central Lions kept it close Friday night trailing Monroe County 12-8 in the first quarter and 18-16 early in the third quarter, the home standing Lions ran out of gas and bodies downt the stretch to fall 32-16.
The non-regional loss dropped the Lions to 1-5 overall.
Filling in for head football coach Martez Graham, Athletic Director Brian Coleman said, “We ran out of gas. We had about three or four key players to go down tonight with minor injuries. They were unable to go back into the game, and so that hurt us a lot.”
Coleman said he felt the team played much better than the previous week. “We didn’t quit. We got a lot of guys into the game that kept thier heads in the game and played real hard. So, I’m pretty proud of them, but I wish we could have come out better than this.”
Down 12-0 in the first quarter, Central’s Keegan Blackman hit Jaquez Bolling with a 70-yard pass play for a touchdown. And Malek Hill added the 2-point conversion to make it a 12-8 contest.
Down 18-8 at the half, Bolling took the third quarter kickoff all the way back for a touchdown. And Blackman hit Diamonta Johnson witha pass for the 2-point conversion to pull the Lions to within two points, 18-16.
However, exhaustion and injuries hampered the Lions the rest of the way and Monroe County pulled way for a 32-16 win.
While the Lions are 1-2 in Class 2A Region 3 play, they travel Sept. 30 to face regional foe Elba on the road.
In other football action:
The Lowndes Academy Rebels (1-3 overall) (1-1 in Class A Region 1 play) enjoyed an open date Friday and will travel to non-regional Wilcox Academy on Sept. 30.
Unfortunately, the Calhoun Tigers fell to 0-6 losing to Wilcox Central in a non-regional contest 58-0 on the road.
Calhoun head football coach Bill Lamar said, “We had a great week of practice… went over their assignments for tonight, but we did not execute the game plan.”

Calhoun will travel to Luverne for a Class 2A Region 3 regional contest on Sept. 30. The Tigers are 0-2 in regional play.