Warren Central rides dominant defense to win over Ridgeland
Published 11:37 pm Thursday, October 10, 2024
RIDGELAND — At some point Thursday night, Warren Central’s defense stopped looking like a hard-charging football team and started looking like a pack of rabid, starving lions chasing down slabs of meat.
The Vikings registered 13 tackles for loss, held Ridgeland to 204 total yards, and rode the dominating defensive performance to a 27-6 victory over Ridgeland in its MHSAA Region 2-6A opener.
“The last two games I felt like we had to step up our momentum. We had to make a statement,” Warren Central linebacker Gavin Davenport said. “The defense played a wonderful game today. We had our ups and downs, but at the end of the day we came out as a great team.”
Aden Greer rushed for 141 yards, and Eric Collins Jr. had 60 yards and two touchdowns to lead Warren Central’s offense. Nash Morgan finished 8-of-14 passing for 99 yards, and Jaylon Winters caught two passes for 40 yards.
That side of the ball did not get going until the second half, however, when it scored on three consecutive possessions to finally blow the game open. Until then, it was up to the defense to keep it close and that unit was more than ready for the challenge.
Ridgeland (3-3, 0-1 Region 2-6A) ran 58 offensive plays and 29 of those gained one yard or less. The Titans’ only touchdown came on the first play of the second quarter, when quarterback DK Wallace broke free on a 45-yard run for a 6-0 lead.
Tekarius Qualls had five tackles for loss to lead the Vikings (3-3, 1-0).
“I thought our defense played good, and we think a lot of our defense. Other than the big run — and a lot of that goes to the player — we prevented big plays,” Warren Central coach Josh Morgan said. “We really got them behind the chains, which you throw the Wing-T out of whack when you’re able to do that. Our D-line should be dominant, we expect them to be dominant, and I thought we tackled well.”
A 17-yard touchdown run by Jadarius Miller put Warren Central ahead late in the second quarter, and it finally took firm control with its big surge in the second half.
Collins scored on runs of 12 and 7 yards, and Nash Morgan threw a 33-yard touchdown pass to Winters on the first play of the next possession to make it 27-6 with 8:52 left in the game.
The Vikings averaged 7.4 yards per carry on the first two drives of that sequence, after averaging 4.2 yards and allowing five sacks on their first eight possessions.
“We just decided we were going to be very simple in what we were doing and trust our blocking scheme and our backs,” Josh Morgan said. “I thought EJ gave us a big spark, Aden ran really hard all night, and we trusted putting the ball in those two’s hands and trusted our O-line. I’m glad to see us make some really good adjustments on both sides at halftime and we were able to play how we wanted to play.”