Cougars stun high-powered Moss Point; at Sumrall Friday

The Cardiac Cougars are at it again. Coach Jesse Anderson’s upstart team traveled to the Mississippi Gulf Coast last Friday, as at least a 30-point underdog, in the opening round of the MHSAA 4A football playoffs. When the dust had cleared, the Cougars rode out of Jackson County with a stunning, shocking 20-19 win over the Moss Point Tigers. Perhaps no one – outside of the Cougars and their coaches – saw this one coming.
Last season, Lawrence County worked its way through the regular season with a fairly-pedestrian 6-4 record, finishing in third place in the Cougars’ six-team division. Then, the Cougars went to work, reeling off three playoffs wins – two of them not decided until the final play – en route to the South 4A finals. Again, no one saw it coming.
This fall, Anderson’s team went 2-5 in the pandemic-shortened regular season, finishing fourth in what was, this season, a five-team division. The Cougars lost their last three regular season games, and the last two were blowout losses.
The reward for finishing fourth in high school football is, on a positive note, a trip to the playoffs. On the other hand, being a fourth-place team, taking a road trip to face a division champion, can be a rather daunting task. Long-time LCHS fans might remember similar trips to Wayne County and D’Iberville in past years…neither one was pretty.

Read more in the November 11, 2020 E-Edition