No. 13 Indians shocked by Coahoma in double overtime

No. 13 Indians shocked by Coahoma in double overtime
Adam Gore/LetsGoICC.com

CLARKSDALE, MS – The No. 13 Itawamba Community College football team dropped their second-straight game behind an 47-41 double overtime upset loss to unranked Coahoma Community College on Saturday.

"Give Coahoma all the credit," said ICC coach Jon Williams. "They wanted this game and gave more effort than we did to make the plays when they needed them to be able to pull off this upset."

Jeb Millender (Pontotoc) hit a 41-yard field goal as time expired to send the game into overtime.

Coahoma (1-6, 1-3) scored on a 15-yard pass to Christian Williams (Gulfport) on their third play from scrimmage in the first overtime, but ICC (5-2, 3-1) answered on the first play from scrimmage when Griff Loftis (Mooreville) found LaDarrell Hunt (Noxubee County) on a 25-yard scoring strike.

Faced with fourth-and-one in the second overtime, ICC ran the ball up the middle and moved the ball to the 15-yard line for an apparent first down. The officials picked up the ball and signaled Coahoma football before measuring, but re-spotted the football shy of the 15 and measured for the first down before signaling the Indians were inches short of keeping the drive alive.

"It was a very unusual to not measure for the first down in that situation and then to have the football re-spotted after picking it up made it even more unusual," said Williams. "Bottom line, we shouldn't have put ourselves in a situation where there was any chance of doubt."

Back-to-back penalties on the Indians moved the ball to the 2-yard line where Williams slipped out of a couple of tackles to give the Tigers their third ever win over the Indians.

Loftis threw for 468 yards on 40 of 54 passing with 4 touchdowns and 1 interception. Shante Rogers (Itawamba AHS) caught 6 passes for a career-high 162 yards and 2 touchdowns of 63 and 9 yards while Hunt had 6 receptions for a career-high 110 yards and a score with Anfernee Brand (Houston) hauling in 2 passes for 17 yards and a 5-yard touchdown.

Tobias Lofton (Forest) rushed for 64 yards and a 1-yard TD on 14 carries as the Indians only managed 79 yards rushing for a total offense output of 547 yards.

Defensively, ICC gave up 429 yards (223 passing; 206 rushing) with Myles Harges (Grenada) recording 12 tackles (7 solo; 5 assists) with 2 tackles for a loss of 19 yards. Darius White (Grenada) had an interception to go along with 4 tackles, all solo, and a pass break up.

The Indians will look to rebound when they host rival Northeast Mississippi Community College (3-4, 3-1 MACJC North) Thursday night.

"We've got to find a way to put this one behind us and get ready for a really good Northeast team coming to town for a big game on Thursday," said Williams. "They are a very talented team that has a lot of different weapons they can beat you with on both sides of the football."

Kickoff is slated for 7:00 at Eaton Field. The game can be heard on WAFM 95.7 FM and seen on LetsGoICC.com starting at 6:40 with the Davis Ford Pre-Game Show.

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