By JORDAN ANDERS

The Daily Reflector

 

When Washington departs the Eastern Plains 2-A Conference after this season, it will do so with a perfect record against Farmville Central.

The Pam Pack capitalized on four Farmville Central turnovers and got just enough scoring offense to hold off the Jaguars for a 21-10 victory Thursday night to open EPC play.

It was Washington’s fourth win over the Jaguars in as many years of play in the conference. The Pam Pack will move to a different conference when realignment takes effect next school year.

Washington improved to 1-6.

“We’ve got to believe in ourselves,” Washington coach Sport Sawyer said. “There’s been a little bit of doubt on some things. We’ve been fighting this year and lost some games, fought hard, but we were able to get a few things going and keep fighting and win the game.”

Farmville Central was without starting quarterback Brad Shackleford and defensive tackle Jaqwuez Norman, both suspended for disciplinary reasons. Even so, the Jaguars drove inside the Washington 30-yard line on each of their first two possessions before fumbling the ball away.

Washington took advantage on its second possession when running back Suae Poe knifed his way through the right side of the line and took off 63 yards for a touchdown that put the Pam Pack up 6-0.

Quarterback Frederick Holscher put the Pam Pack ahead 14-0 with a 2-yard scoring run with 2:39 left in the first half.

Farmville Central’s offense finally got on track in the third quarter, chewing up much of the clock with two long drives that ended in a 1-yard touchdown run by Tyreke Tyson and a 27-yard field goal by Trent Langley.

Poe slammed the door shut on the rally, though, with a 63-yard scoring scamper with 7:31 to play.

Sophomore Matthew Leavelle started in place of Shackleford at quarterback, going 2-for-13 for 45 yards with a pair of interceptions. Rontavion Floyd came up with one of those picks in the end zone with less than a minute left in the first half. It marked Washington’s third takeaway inside its own 30.

“We’ve made turnovers this year and made some mistakes, but I don’t think we had any turnovers tonight,” said Sawyer, whose team indeed did not turn the ball over. “When you win the turnover battle, you usually win games and we were able to win the turnover battle, so I was very happy with that.”

Poe piled up 233 yards on 23 carries, though 133 of those came on his two touchdown runs.