advertisement

Milam leads Indians to rout of Panthers

PINCKNEYVILLE - The latest chapter of the Battle of the Beaucoup was another slaughter.

Westly Milam carried the ball 10 times and scored touchdowns on five of those runs, racking up 252 yards, as the Du Quoin High School football team cruised to a 54-6 win over Pinckneyville on Friday night.

"Westly is just a special, special kid and it feels good to have him back there," said Du Quoin coach A.J. Hill. "That's what he does. He did it last week and he's pretty much done it all year."

Du Quoin improved to 5-0 and 2-0 in the SIRR Mississippi Division after winning the rivarly matchup for the 34th time in the past 35 years.

Pinckneyville fell to 3-2 overall and is now 1-1 in conference play.

Through barely a quarter-and-a-half, Milam scored touchdowns with runs of 10, 41, 76, 29 and 57 yards. The first came at the 9:25 mark of the first quarter.

Indians quarterback Josh Heape scored on his own 28-yard run to make it 14-0 going into the second period, then Milam scored four touchdowns just a little over four minutes apart.

Milam, a senior, gave credit to his offensive linemen.

"They did a great job," Milam said. "I have to give them props. None of this happens without them."

All that scoring came with the help of five lost Pinckneyville fumbles in the first half.

"With our offense, that's a goal of ours," Hill said. "When a team makes a turnover, we have to make them pay. And I think we did a good job of that tonight."

The turnovers left Pinckneyville head coach Tod Rushing frustrated after the loss.

"We have to take care of the football," Rushing said. "We dropped passes, we fumbled, you name it we did it. You can't keep giving them the football in short field situations. And that's what we did."

A week earlier, the Panthers used a strong ground game to beat Sparta, mostly with ball in the hands of Darian Harris. Against the Indians, Harris carried 18 times for 45 yards and the Panthers had just 35 net rushing yards and 67 more passing.

"We're a good football team only if we play together as a team, we do our jobs, we play sound fundamental football, trust each other, and play hard all the time," Rushing said. "Tonight I don't think we did the things we had been doing the first four weeks. That's not to take anything away from Du Quoin, they played very well, but we didn't do the things that allowed us to win three football games."

Du Quoin was ahead 40-0 after Milam's fifth score. Pinckneyville got on the board with a short run by quarterback Hunter Riggins with 3:20 left in the half, then the Indians made sure the clock would run continuously in the second half went Shamar Adams plunged in with 1:06 left before the break.

"I'm just proud of our guys the way they came out and executed from the get-go," Hill said.

The Indians led 47-6 and added a 15-yard score by backup quarterback Alex Zimmerman in the second half to further dampen Pinckneyville's homecoming night. Zimmerman finished with five carries for 74 yards.

Heape was 5 of 12 passing for 84 yards, with half of that total coming on his last completion to Dasani Edward. Alec Caldwell kicked six extra points in the rout.

Riggins was 6 of 14 for 67 yards. Lucas Downard caught four of those passes for 54 yards.

Nick Depyatic led Du Quoin's defense with seven tackles and two fumble recoveries. Chase Fulkerson had nine tackles and Stetson Lappin had seven for the Panthers.

"We didn't do a very good job up front," Rushing said. "I think we quit playing aggressive and when you do that against a good football team, you're in trouble."

Du Quoin has its own homecoming game this coming Friday against Sparta, while the Panthers travel to Anna-Jonesboro.

- Doug Daniels contributed to this report

Dalton Moore sacks Hunter Riggins. Doug Daniels Photo
Hunter Riggins hands off to Darian Harris. Daniel Herbst Photo
Josh Heape throws a pass Friday night. Doug Daniels Photo
Lucas Downard makes a catch. Doug Daniels Photo