Demopolis takes shutout in long road trip to Enterprise

ENTERPRISE — Demopolis suffered its first shutout in 170 games Friday night when it stepped onto the field with a Class 7A foe for the first time in school history, falling to Class Enterprise 42-0.

The Tigers traveled more than three hours to the state’s fifth largest school and found out quickly why the Wildcats entered ranked No. 7 in Class 7A when they took their opening possession 60 yards on eight plays. Koty Fulton-Tice made his first impression on the game on the first play from scrimmage when he surveyed the field and then tucked it for a 33-yard scramble to help set up a 1-yard Cincere Flowers touchdown, putting the Wildcats up quickly.

Facing a defensive box that included nine and 10 players for most of the night, Demopolis never found the offensive rhythm to respond.

“We knew that,” Demopolis coach Stacy Luker said of what he expected his offensive front to face coming into the game. “We had an opportunity to complete some balls and we didn’t. We had an opportunity to make some plays. That’s what we’re going to see. No doubt.”

Enterprise needed only only four plays to go 38 yards on its second possession as Fulton-Tice ran it in from 17 yards out for the 14-0 lead.

A Logan McVay run of 35 yards gave the Tigers hope to make it a game but the drive fizzled and the Tigers found little more offensive spark in the first half.

Enterprise found the end zone for the third time with 9:21 left in the second quarter when Flowers took the snap in the Wildcat formation and scored from two yards out. The opportunity came about when Demopolis incurred a pass interference call on third down before Fulton-Tice hit Flowers for a 47-yard strike down the left sideline to move the ball to the Tiger 4.

Enterprise only needed to go 29 yards for its third touchdown of the evening, covering the distance in a pair of throws from Fulton-Tice. The touchdown strike came when the senior signal-caller hit Marcus Jones for a 12-yard score just before half.

“I felt like we played physical tonight. I thought we played hard. I thought our level of play was high at times. We made a lot of mistakes,” Luker said. “I thought, a lot, we didn’t get off the field on third down. We started a lot of first down and 15 drives offensively and we’re not built for first and 15.”

The Tigers managed 218 yards of total offense with 196 coming on the ground. The Tiger (6-2) travel to Jemison next Friday night to wrap up Class 5A, Region 3 play.