Sweet Water shakes early breakdowns in win over St. Luke’s
Sweet Water trailed St. Luke’s early Friday night before reeling off 33 unanswered points in a 40-28 Class 2A, Region 1 win.
The Bulldogs watched St. Luke’s take the early 7-0 lead on a Kesonn Tyler Bettis run of 33 yards before answering with a 2-yard run from Jaylin Johnson to tie the game three minutes later.
St. Luke’s took the lead again with 7:24 left until half when Jermaine Brown found Joseph Regan for a 10-yard scoring strike.
The lead stayed with the visitors until Eric Jenkins punched it in from a yard out with 1:16 left in the half. Then Branson Davis hit Paul Weatherly for a 39-yard touchdown pass with 18 seconds before intermission, giving Sweet Water its first lead of the game.
“At one point, we were down 14-7 and we went into half 19-14. I challenge them a little bit, told them I knew what they could do,” Sweet Water coach Pat Thompson said. “We dominated the third quarter, scored 21 points and didn’t give up any.”
Sweet Water got a 1-yard touchdown run from Davis and 2-yard run from R.J. Rodgers to stretch the lead to 34-14 before Davis found eighth grader Sasha Smith for a 13-yard touchdown pass to cap the Bulldog scoring.
St. Luke’s got back in on the scoring with 9:23 to play when Brown hit Regan for a 39-yard TD strike. Brown later found Christian Kennedy Milligan for a 2-yard touchdown pass to punctuate the scoring.
Sweet Water put together 408 yards of total offense, including 323 on the ground and possessed the ball for 31 minutes of game time.
Jenkins led Sweet Water with 135 yards on 17 carries. Johnson added 78 yards on 15 yards on 15 carries. Rodgers had 40 yards on just eight carries.
Sweet Water (1-1, 1-0) is set to travel to Mobile Christian next week.