JUCO Football Week 1 …

How did ICC and Northeast do in Week 1 and what is next? Click link below to find out.

HINDS HOLDS OFF NORTHEAST IN OPENER
BOONEVILLE, MISS. – The host Eagles knocked off the Tigers 23-12 after having four touchdowns called back due to penalties. Hinds had touchdowns of 95, 90, 68 and 25 yards negated due to penalties — three in the first half. HCC (1-0) jumped on the board in the first quarter when NE starting quarterback Aaron Kissinger hopped on a bad snap in the end zone.
Hinds pushed its lead out to 16-0 at the the break when Eagle QB Wesley Mounger found his mark on a 20-yard strike to Vernon White and then connected with Cole Michael for 11 markers with 54 seconds left in the half.

Northeast (0-1) clawed its way back into the game as Emanuel Francis hit for a pair of touchdowns in the second half. Francis, who sat out the first quarter, connected with Jeremy Cannon on a 12-yard scoring strike on the Tigers first possession of the second half. Northeast pieced together a 10-play, 75-yard drive to start the third quarter after accounting for just over 100 yards in the first half. NEMCC couldn’t find its mark in on the two-point conversion and trailed 16-6.

Francis pulled NE within four when he connected with Chris Hill on a 25-yard pass with 9:46 left in the game. The Tigers got a reprieve from a punt earlier in the drive after Michael fumbled the boot and NE long snapper Creighton Nelms came up with the loose pigskin for the Tigers. Hinds closed the door on Northeast when Mounger plunged in from two yards out on HCC’s ensuing drive.

Sophomore Quarterback Emanuel Francis played well for the Tigers. When asked about the loss to Hines he said, “I am sad about the loss, but I feel good about the effort of the team. The young guys played hard and everything is going to be alright.” Francis did not start the game at quarterback but came in early in the first half to relieve Aaron Kissinger who got the starting nod.

Head Coach Ricky Smither was pleased with his squad’s effort. When asked about his team’s effort he said, “The kids played hard but made way too many mistakes. When you play this caliber of a team like we played tonight, you just can’t make all those mistakes.”

Coach Smither says he looks for ways to improve next week as they prepare for the home opener against Pearl River. “I think we need to improve on our focus, it was not there at all. We look like a bunch of deer in headlights. We looked like we were shell shocked.” Smither said.

Northeast returns to action Thursday at 7p.m. in its home opener at Keenum Stadium against Pearl River.

ICC tries to bounce back against defending national champs

Itawamba Community College head football coach Jeff Terrill and his staff had to get back to work quickly after their 20th ranked Indians fell to number 7 Jones County in the season opener, 38-7, Thursday night in Ellisville. This Thursday night, ICC entertains third ranked Gulf Coast in Fulton at 7:00 p.m.

“Right now, we don’t need to worry about who we’re playing in the next game,” said Terrill, whose program had won 24 of its last 29 regular season games before losing at Jones County. “We did not execute at all in our first game. Yes, Jones has a really good team and that had something to do with it but our guys didn’t make plays and our freshmen sure played like freshmen.”

Terrill did point out that his staff has stressed to the players that the opening night loss was only one game and there’s a whole lot of football left this season.

“You’ve heard it through the years that a team improves the most from game one to game two and our staff will work hard this week to try to make sure that happens with our squad,” added Terrill, who sports the only program in the state that’s qualified for the post-season the last four seasons. “We’ve got so many freshmen in key positions, including our quarterbacks and offensive line. They will get better but we will all get another difficult assignment with the defending national champs this week coming to our place. We look forward to that challenge.”

ICC Director of Marketing Will Kollmeyer would like to remind all of the Indian fans to “spread the red” this week, as well as all season long, at Lambert Stadium.

“I think it would show our team a great deal of support if they could come running out of the locker room before kickoff and look up and see nothing but red in our stands,” said Kollmeyer, who also began his fifth season as the “Voice of the Indians” in the opener at Jones. “The last couple of years our coaches and student athletes have mentioned that it really ‘jacks ‘em up’ whey they look up at a sea of red in our stands.”

Kollmeyer also added that you can listen to this week’s showdown against Gulf Coast on fm95 (95.7) and also on the College’s website at www.iccms.edu along with www.fm95radio.com.