McKenzie warms up

BY RAY VAN COR

The Greenville Standard

 

The McKenzie Tigers kicked off football season officially last Thursday night, hosting the red and royal blue Red Devils of Verbena. McKenzie’s faithful was out in full force, filling the stands and along the fence, even though it was not a regular season game but a full contact scrimmage. It was football time again in Butler County.

Both teams had rough sledding last year with McKenzie finishing 1 – 9 and Verbena 0 -10 and the low county cats Head Coach Tony Norris was looking to put a large check mark in the win column to jump start the Tiger’s season.

Coach Norris said, “I really wanted to see how physical we were going to be and this scrimmage was to help us work out some of the kinks.”

First game jitters always bring out the mistakes and penalties like ‘Delay of game’ plagued both teams.

The Verbena Red Devils fielded only 22 players as opposed to McKenzie’s 36 and McKenzie drew first blood.

Zanderion Cook scored on a scamper for six points and the two point conversion failed.  With 4:37 left in the first quarter the Tigers defensive swarm sacked Verbena’s Quarterback in the end zone putting two more points in the tally books.

The second quarter saw good defensive play from the tigers and a 34 yard touchdown pass from Quarterback Jakarrie McPherson to Tanner Shipp. The same duo connected again for the two point conversion which brought the first half to a close with McKenzie on top 16 – 0

The second half was purely situational football and Verbena manage to get six on the board before the jamboree ended 24 – 6 with McKenzie the victor.

This week the Tigers will host the Houston Academy Raiders at home which is a non-conference game.