LIBERTY — In 2019, the lone victory for the Amite School Center Rebels came against Hillcrest Christian at the beginning of the year. Fast forward to 2020 and the Rebels were searching for the same outcome to kick their season off on the right foot.
And they got just that following a 38-6 win over the Cougars at home.
“I am very proud of my kids’ effort, they never gave up, they never stopped,” ASC head coach Joe Weaver said. “I saw a lot of good things with these guys tonight. I think that we are hungry, and we showed that. We’ll keep working.”
The main issue facing ASC (1-0) the whole evening was fumbles. The Rebels fumbled the ball 11 times and lost nine of them. Yet a combination of a stout defense and a resilient offense helped them pull through.
The fumble bug hurt ASC early on. The Rebels had little trouble moving the ball down the field on Hillcrest (0-1), but it struggled hanging on to it during the first three possessions. Costly fumbles resulted in promising drives — all of which crossed the 50-yard line — to be stalled.
“We knew that anytime that you are running a veer offense or triple option, turnovers are part of it, and you try to limit your turnovers,” Weaver said. “Tonight, a lot of ours was created by ourselves, instead of created by them.”
In the second quarter, however, things began to click for the hosts. The Rebel defense kicked off the second quarter with a stop of the Cougars who were backed up deep in their own territory. Hillcrest was forced to punt from its own end zone and following a 30-yard boot, the punt was muffed but Jesse Mellinger scooped it up and sprinted into the end zone as the Rebels lit up their side of the score board first.
“I just picked it up, seen open field and took it to the house,” Mellinger said.
The punt return for a score seemed to be just the boost that ASC needed. On their next offensive possession, the Rebels put together a six-play 60-yard drive that culminated with a 10-yard touchdown run by senior Dallas Fair increasing the lead to 16-0. The drive consisted of big runs by backs Zack Cothren and Colby Longmire.
Two drives later, the ASC lead increased even further when Mellinger scored his first rushing touchdown of the evening following a 15-yard sprint into the end zone. A successful 2-point try made the score 24-0 late in the second quarter.
After the Rebel defense forced a fumble —one of six takeaways on the night for ASC — they tried to get one last score before halftime but they gave the ball back to the Cougars as the final seconds ticked off the clock in the second quarter.
On the first drive of the second half, the fumble problem for the Rebels reared its ugly head once again. Hillcrest’s Derrion Barnes stripped Mellinger of the ball and returned it 70 yards for the score putting the Cougars on the board for the first time in the game.
However, Mellinger and the Rebels answered right back. On just the second play of the ensuing drive, the senior quarterback sliced through the Cougar defense and rumbled into the end zone for a 66-yard touchdown run increasing the lead to 32-6.
The scoring for ASC was capped-off at the 9:39 mark in the fourth quarter when Longmire scored on a 6-yard run.
Fair adds that he is proud of the way the team responded with the win following struggles shown during scrimmage play last week.
“Last week wasn’t too good,” he said. “We had a bunch of people putting down on us but this week kind of helped us out by boosting us more and giving us more energy.”
Both Mellinger and Fair finished over the century mark in rushing yards. Mellinger had 133 and two scores on just eight carries while Fair recorded 116 and a touchdown on 18 carries. Fair also led the defense in tackles with 11 while Cothren had 10.
Next up for the Rebels is a home contest against Silliman. Coach Weaver knows that his team has some work to do ahead of the game against the Wildcats but coming off of a win makes it easier.
“Practice is always good on Monday coming off of a win,” he said. “Silliman is a good football team and I know that they lost some key guys from last year but they’ve got some guys coming up that is good.”
