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FOOTBALL: Panthers get a win worth waiting for

Posted September 26, 2011 11:00 pm

Doug Daniels

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Pinckneyville's varsity football team hadn't beaten Anna-Jonesboro in their last twelve tries, so waiting through three delays for lightning that eventually postponed the conclusion of the game until Saturday afternoon was a fitting way for the streak to come to an end as the Panthers shocked the Wildcats 26-13 in their first turnover-free effort of the 2011 season.

"I think that shows you what you're capable of, you can play with anybody," said PCHS head football coach Tod Rushing, who defeated A-J for the first time in his tenure with the Panthers.

"If we turn the ball over three or four times, we probably don't win this game. We took advantage when we had the ball and held onto it and got the four scores out of it. That's what we've got to do."

The Panthers led 18-7 with 6:37 to go in the third quarter when play was delayed for nearby lighting for the third time on Friday night. The decision was made to resume play at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, when Pinckneyville quarterback Bryant Shute put the finishing touches on a 225-yard rushing performance in which he had something to do with each of the Panthers' four touchdowns.

"Whenever you're facing a team that's got an explosive player like Shute, you have to limit his big plays," said Anna-Jonesboro head coach Brett Detering. "We didn't do that. He's a difference maker in games, he made some big plays for them and those are tough to overcome."

"You've got to give them a lot of credit for a good game plan. They out-executed us, they made more plays than we did. It's pretty simple sometimes."

Shute got the scoring started on Friday night with a 63-yard touchdown run for a 6-0 lead with 6:31 to go in the opening quarter. The defense forced a three-and-out right after that, and the offense had the ball back on the Pinckneyville 38-yard line just 27 seconds later.

Seven plays and 62 yards later, Shute found Dalton Hubler in the end zone for a 10-yard touchdown pass and a 12-0 lead that held until the first lightning delay with 1:42 to go in the opening frame.

J.D. Connor picked off A-J quarterback Brady Wright after the 30-minute mandatory waiting period, but the offense stalled after just three plays. The Wildcats took ten plays to go 53 yards for their first touchdown as Wright spun in from one yard out with 3:48 left in the first half.

Shute, like the lightning off in the distance, would strike again. The Panther quarterback followed the left side of his offensive line for a big hole that led to a 67-yard touchdown run with 2:23 left on the clock. Shute's pass on the two-point attempt was incomplete, and the Panthers led 18-7.

That was still the score around seventeen hours later when the game was resumed in the middle of the third quarter.

The teams fought to a stalemate on Saturday until Wright found the end zone again from one yard out to finish off a 72-yard drive and cut Pinckneyville's lead to 18-13 with 10:39 to go in the game.

The Panthers went three-and-out for the second time in a row, but again the defense was up to the challenge, forcing the same result from the A-J offense after a short pass and two incompletions.

Pinckneyville was facing fourth-and-two from the A-J 45 when Shute utilized the hard count to draw the Wildcats offsides and keep the drive alive.

Shute wasn't finished, as the Panthers faced another fourth down, this time with ten yards to go from the Wildcats' 18 with just under three minutes to play. He rolled to his right and found running room all the way down to the one yard line where he was marked out of bounds despite an attempt to hold the ball inside the pylon.

"When they needed to make a play, they made it this afternoon," Detering said. "With that long run on fourth-and-ten, if we make that play, we have a chance. We (would have gotten) the ball back with about five minutes left to go in the game, and have a chance to maybe move down and score."

Shute plunged in from a yard out with 2:49 to go to put PCHS up by two scores, connected with Hubler for the two-point conversion, then the defense did the rest.

"I think from the neck up is where he played this football game," Rushing said of his quarterback. "Everybody's talking about his speed, but I thought he made some excellent decisions."

"Like that last play, we'd been talking to him all year, he'd made some ill-advised passes when he'd roll out. Your biggest weapon is that you put dual pressure on them when you roll out, they've got to cover you, and they didn't today. I told him if it's there, run, and he did."

The Panther defense tallied four sacks on the night, two from Hubler and one each from Keegan Kellerman and Sabin Kohut.

A-J played most of the game without running back-defensive back Dalton Baker, who was ejected after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty during the second quarter on Friday night.

Shute (24 carries, 225 yards) accounted for most of the Panthers' 289 rushing yards, Cole Kellerman was a distant second with 41 yards on 10 carries, Connor was third (2-23).

Shute was 5-for-14 passing for 39 yards and a touchdown. Hubler (2-13) and Justin Hale (2-20) both caught two passes, Justyn Rushing (1-6) hauled in the other.

"(Shute) made great throws," Rushing said. "His stats aren't going to reflect how well he threw the ball because we dropped some balls, Anna dropped some balls too, that's going to happen, but I thought he was extremely accurate."

Anna-Jonesboro's offense was plagued by dropped passes, as Wright struggled for an 18-for-47 showing throwing the football. The Wildcats did rack up 254 yards in the air along with 96 on the ground, led by Wright's 64 yards on 17 attempts.

Not since the 1998 season had the Pinckneyville Panthers defeated Anna-Jonesboro in varsity football.

"It's a big win, it's been a long time," Rushing admitted. "The biggest part of it was is that it was a really good, quality football team we beat after we'd had our backs against the wall the last two weeks and lost, to regroup and win. Not only to win a game, but to win over one of the better teams in the south, a well-coached, traditional program like that, that says a lot for these kids."

The Panthers (3-2, 1-1) look to break a four-way tie for second place in the Southern Illinois River-to-River Conference Mississippi Division this Friday when the host division leader Nashville (3-2, 2-0) at Quillman Field.

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