Warren Central crushes No. 2 Tupelo in Class 6A playoffs

Published 12:06 am Saturday, November 11, 2017

TUPELO — One of the keys to victory for Warren Central on Friday night was going to be how well its players and coaches coped with a four-hour bus ride to Tupelo.

Right from the start, the Vikings were ready to jump off the bus and take care of business.

Warren Central set the tone by recovering a fumble on the opening kickoff and scoring a quick touchdown, and went on to thoroughly dominate previously-undefeated Tupelo 30-13 in the first round of the MHSAA Class 6A playoffs.

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Corey Wilson, Jr. rushed for two touchdowns and Hank Holdiness kicked three field goals for the Vikings (9-3), who advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the third consecutive season.

Warren Central will host Madison Central — a 31-14 winner over South Panola on Friday — in the second round next Friday at 7 p.m.

Tupelo (11-1), the Region 1-5A champion, went undefeated in the regular season for the second year in a row only to bow out of the playoffs early. It lost in the second round in 2016.

“It’s big. It’s no doubt about it. They were undefeated, most people’s favorite to come out of the North, and the way we handled everything was great,” Warren Central coach Josh Morgan said. “We wanted to start fast and set the tone, and we did that. We controlled the first half about as well as we could have.”

The opening fumble led to Wilson’s 1-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-goal. Holdiness added three field goals from 24, 23 and 40 yards in the second quarter to stretch the lead to 16-0, and on the second play of the third quarter one of the team’s new secret weapons broke off perhaps the biggest play of the game.

Running back Jerrious Stovall’s 81-yard touchdown run gave the Vikings a 23-0 lead less than a minute into the second half and seemingly put the game on ice early. It was Stovall’s fourth touchdown in the past three games.

“He hit another gear tonight that I hadn’t seen. When he broke that first level, he just found another gear,” Morgan said.

Warren Central took the 23-0 lead into the fourth quarter to make a bid for its fourth shutout in five games, but Tupelo mounted a late comeback bid. Quarterback Stephon McGlaun threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to Sirmarcus Evans and then ran for a 2-yard touchdown to cut it to 23-13 with 3:44 left in the game.

Evans finished with seven receptions for 93 yards and a touchdown.
Warren Central’s defense came up big in the end, however. It stuffed McGlaun on a two-point conversion attempt to keep it a two-possession game, and then intercepted him twice in the final three minutes.

Caleb Wilson had the first interception, with 2:47 to go, to set up a 12-yard touchdown run by Wilson that pushed the lead to 30-13. Walt Hopson then picked off McGlaun on the next play from scrimmage to allow the Vikings to run out the clock.

Hopson also had an interception in the second quarter to set up a 23-yard field goal by Holdiness. Hopson has seven interceptions this season, and four in the last four games.