By By KEVIN TRAVIS
Sports Editor
Southside coach David Hines and his Seahawks will be playing with some heavy hearts tonight.
Jeremy Jones, who coached Southside’s junior varsity team last year, and his wife, Lindsay, lost their four-month old son Tuesday morning. Hines said he, his staff and players took the loss hard.
“The big thing is, our kids really care about Jeremy (now an assistant coach at South Central High School),” said Hines, who was going to attend the funeral with his team. “They are in our thoughts and prayers.”
The Seahawks (0-1) will look to get focused when they travel to Creswell to face the Tigers (1-0) tonight. While Southside is coming off a 28-12 loss to North Duplin, the Tigers picked up a 48-12 victory against Northside last week. Creswell ran for 373 yards against the Panthers.
Jaquan Bryant (146 yards and two scores on nine carries) and Timell Sawyer (142 yards and two touchdowns on seven carries) led the ground attack. Danvonta Phelps competed 6 of 10 passes for 126 yards and two touchdowns. Gary Blount (five catches for 123 yards) caught both touchdown tosses.
“Even with a lack of numbers, they play hard,” Hines said of the Tigers. “Watching them on film, they get to the ball on defense and they run hard on offense. We feel like we’ll get their best. It will be a dogfight.”
Despite the loss in last week’s season opener, Hines was pleased with what he saw from his team. Marcus Oneal led the ground attack with 60 yards rushing. Lonnie Williams added 56 yards and quarterback Terrill Moore ran for 40 yards and a touchdown.
Moore connected of 5 of 26 passes for 72 yards and an interception. Willie Ruffin caught four passes for 55 yards, while Anthony Goff had a 95-yard kickoff return for a score.
“I think, overall, the first game wasn’t too bad,” Hines said. “We could have done a few things better, but we ran the ball well. We didn’t have a high completion percentage, but Terrill made good throws. He did a great job managing the game. He’s only a sophomore so he’s only going to improve.”
Curtis Myers, Greg Crisp, Jody Harding and James Jones all had seven tackles to pace the Seahawks. Hines said he’s hoping the defense will be even more solid against the Tigers.
“We needed to tackle better,” Hines said. “We may switch some things up on defense just to fill some holes.”
The game kicks off at 7:30 p.m.