Lanett in position to win region title after blowout of Central-Coosa
BY NOAH GRIFFITH
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LANETT — The Lanett Panthers had a successful homecoming game on Friday night, blowing out the Central-Coosa Cougars, 63–0.
With its second consecutive win, Lanett improves to 6-2 on the season while Central-Coosa falls to 3-5. The Panthers are also 4-0 in 2A Region 4, and they are the only remaining team in the region that’s unbeaten in region play with two games remaining in the season.
“If we just continue to play how we’ve been playing, I like our chances to lock up the region,” said second-year head coach RJ McDonald. “We’ve just got to continue to worry about Lanett – that’s kind of been our thing all year is just going 1-0 each week.”
Specifically, McDonald bragged on his defense after the unit pitched its third shutout of the season against Central-Coosa. Lanett’s defense allows an average of 7.75 points per game this year.
The defense ensured a big win on Friday by taking two interceptions back for touchdowns. Seniors Terrell Staples and Shamar Patterson each had a pick six, while Patterson also led the team with 10 tackles. Seniors Nadarious Morgan and Jeramiah McGilberry turned in a sack a piece.
“Defensively, we’ve been playing at a really high level all year,” McDonald said. “I told everybody from the start I thought we had a championship-level defense. We’ve just got to continue doing the little things right.”
Offensively, the Panthers put up one of their best performances of the season. Assisted by the defensive scores, it was the second time of the season Lanett topped the 50-point mark. It totaled 377 total yards of offense in the game — 242 of them on the ground.
Leading the way, Morgan lit up the stat sheet at running back as well with 104 rushing yards on nine carries with two TDs. Junior RB RJ Tucker also rushed 10 times for 89 yards and a TD. Senior quarterback Fred Broughton also completed 5-of-8 passes for 135 yards and a 30-yard TD pass to junior receiver Quez Johnson.
“Just really pleased with how we played and the energy that we played with,” McDonald said. “I’m excited about the direction we’re headed. We just have to stay healthy for this push toward the end of the year.”
To wrap up the regular season, Lanett has a pair of region matchups with winless Horseshoe Bend (0–7) and a road trip to Ranburne (3–4) to wrap up the schedule. If it wins at least one of those games, it will capture the top seed in the region in the playoffs because of its tiebreaking 20-19 win last week over Reeltown, who is 4-1 in region play. Loachapoka is in third in the region at 3-3 in region contests.
Simply participating in the playoffs isn’t enough, though. Lanett has its sights set on a deep playoff run.
In McDonald’s first season as head coach last year, the Panthers went 4-5 in the regular season and lost in the first round of the playoffs, 54–16, to Cottonwood. This time around, McDonald knows his team is capable of playing later into the year.
“That’s been our goal since we started last January — we want to play until December,” McDonald said. “We felt like we had a really good shot with this group coming back if we can just stay healthy. That was our big thing last year is we couldn’t stay healthy. We’ve done that up to this point, so prayerfully and hopefully we continue to do that.”
