Scots’ defense stymies Hoke QB Avery in 52-6 win

RAEFORD — Coming into Friday night’s conference opener, Scotland head coach Richard Bailey stressed the importance of the Scots’ defense containing Hoke County dual-threat quarterback Warren Avery.

In a 52-6 win over the Bucks, the Scots’ accomplished that and then some, staying in Avery’s face all night, forcing him into mistakes and limiting his effectiveness.

“He’s a heck of an athlete — you’re not going to totally stop a kid like that for the most part,” Bailey said. “I think we frustrated him, we hit him — he was in and out of the game a few times. We definitely struck him a lot and had him thinking about us.”

Senior linebacker Ladarius McNeill said one of the keys was to keep Avery from getting outside the hashes, where he could do the most damage with his legs in the open field. However, Avery’s lone big play of the night came with his arm on a 42-yard touchdown pass to Kamonte Williams near the end of the first half.

“They had the right call against the right coverage right before the half and they got us,” Bailey said. “Coach (Will) Clark made the adjustment on that in the second half and he didn’t really cause any more problems after that really.”

Junior Patrick Primus picked Avery off in the red zone right at the end of the first half, and the Scots’ defense also forced two fumbles, one of which was returned 32-yards for a touchdown by McNeill near the end of the third quarter.

“It felt good,” McNeill said. “I wanted one bad, but I got it in there though.”

In recent weeks, Bailey had lamented the offense’s ability to put together a complete performance. Up to this point, either the passing game or the running game had clicked, but not at the same time.

That changed against the Bucks, as Scotland piled up 431 total yards of offense — its highest total of the season. On the ground Scotland finished with 277 rushing yards and five rushing touchdowns on 31 carries.

Senior RJ Nicholson averaged 12.8 yards per carry in rushing for 128 yards and a touchdown. Junior Patrick Primus showed off his explosiveness with 67 rushing yards and a touchdown on five carries, while senior Jatavious Mckayhan joined the party as well, running for 64 yards and two touchdowns.

Sophomore quarterback Carter Revelle completed 7-of-15 passed for 154 yards and a touchdown, which was caught by junior receiver Izeem Graham.

“I thought we had pretty good balance,” Bailey said. “We threw the ball 15 times and we ran it 31 times. Once we get the running game going, those RPOs have been really tough to stop and hopefully we’ll continue to do that.”

Despite the offense’s overall success, there were still a couple miscues that prevented the it from scoring even more points against an overmatched Bucks defense.

Early on, there were two fumbles that occurred on botched handoffs between Revelle and Nicholson, one was recovered, but the first resulted in a turnover. Then, there was an interception by Revelle and a redzone turnover-on-downs in the first half.

But, the defense was able to get the stops necessary to prevent those miscues from turning into points for the Bucks.

Two errors directly took points off the board for Scotland. Junior receivers Demarion Davis and Cadyn Graves each dropped catches that would have been touchdowns — Davis’ came on a fly route deep downfield where he had already beat the defender and had nothing but green grass in front of him, while Graves’ came on a crossing route on an RPO at the goal line.

“To be honest, we left some throws out there,” Bailey said. “Our completion percentage should have been better and we should have thrown more touchdown passes. We had a couple that we left on the board. So I’m a little disappointed in that, we’ve got to clean that up.”