W.S. Neal senior running back Malcolm Hawthorne rushed for 242 yards on nine carries and scored three touchdowns to help lead the Eagles of East Brewton to a 42-14 thrashing of the Escambia County Blue Devils Friday in Atmore.
Along with Hawthorne’s 242 yards rushing, WSN tallied 464 offensive yards in the 28-point win, with 430 coming on the ground.
WSN led ECHS 14-0 after one quarter and 21-0 at the half. In the third quarter, WSN put the game away with another 14-point quarter to extend their lead to 35-0 heading into the fourth quarter. WSN went up 42-0 early in the fourth before the Blue Devils scored the last 14 points of the game.
Despite the big win, WSN head coach Doug Hoehn said his team was sluggish in the first half. Also, Hoehn was not pleased with his team’s 11 penalties in the game.
“I think we were sluggish the first half. We had a lot of penalties,” Hoehn said. “I can’t remember us ever having that many penalties in these four years I have been here other than my first year when we were trying to learn how to play football. We had a good third quarter.”
Hoehn said he thought the young kids played hard in the fourth quarter and it is always a positive when you can get everyone to play.
“We just have to figure out a way to play hard in all four quarters,” he said. “We were just a little sluggish to start the game.”
As for Hawthorne’s big game, Hoehn said he always shows up to play.
“It doesn’t matter if it is practice or a game,” Hoehn said. “He is getting better and better and better. He always shows up to play. We just have to figure out a way to get everyone to show up and play. That is something I have to improve on every week at practice. We need to play harder in all four quarters.”
For the Blue Devils, ECHS tallied 275 yards, with most coming in the second half. In the first half, ECHS had only 72 yards rushing and one passing yard. In the second half, ECHS had 193 yards on the ground and nine yards passing.
Head coach Royce Young said his team got dominated in every phase of the game Friday. Another defeat for the Blue Devils was the loss of Gaetyn Thames.
“We didn’t show up mentally,” Young said. “We made a lot of errors early. We gave up the big pass there early, but we were playing pretty well on defense early.
“We gave up a long pass and a long run and should have only been down by 14 points at the half. Things just fell apart when we lost our tailback (Thames). We are not mentally tough enough to overcome stuff like that. We just fell apart. You can’t do than when you play a good football team like (W.S. Neal).
“They just outplayed us in every phase.”
Along with Hawthorne’s big night, Quenton Samuel added 110 yards on 10 yards and scored one touchdown. Samuel scored on a 78-yard run in the second quarter.
Hawthorne’s touchdowns came on runs of 65 yards, 35 yards and 60 yards.
Peyton Salter added 14 yards on three carries and scored one touchdown.
Quarterback Jacobey Hawthorne went 3-for-8 passing and had a 13-yard touchdown pass to TyShawn Davis.
For ECHS, Timothy Finklea led with 89 yards on eight carries and had one touchdown.
Devante Dailey added 63 yards on six carries and scored on a 28-yard touchdown run.
WSN (1-0) will host Clarke County in its first region game Friday night while ECHS (0-2) will host Vigor.