2004

"'. ;2. WEEKOF ~~A~D~r ____ J _______ I

Gale boots ECCC past Itawamba, 10-7

By David Wheeler Daly Journa

10-7 with 3:11 left in the third quarter. The Indians then put together a nice series in the fourth quarter. which tur ned out to be their last chance of the contest. Starting at their own 20-yard line, Topps connected on five passes with Windham, Nikita Stover, and Chris Coach. That took ICC down to the Warriors 35-yard line. But on fourth down and two, Topps took off on an option run and came up shy of keeping the drive alive with 2:27 remaining to play. East Central then basically ran the clock out. with ICC also fumbling a punt with nine sec– onds to play. "The offense executed well at times, but we've got to get more consistency,"Terrill said. "We've got to have a running game, and not having that hurt." East Central also took advan– tage of a shor t field the only time it got into the end zone. Going 47 yards in eight plays, Terrance McFadden ran the last six yards on a simple pitch to give the Warriors a 7-0 lead with 3:50 left in the first quarter. The punting of Michael Gibson gave Itawamba some semblance of control, pinning the Warriors inside their own East Central earned what prov~d to be the winning margm of the fi rst possession of th second half a~ Ryan Gale hit a 51-yard field goal for a 10- 0 lead. 10-yard line on four different occasions.

F'ULTO r-.• - When push came to shove Thursday again-.t the East Central War– riors, it seemed the ltawamba Community College Indians were going the wrong way most of the evening. In their home opener, the Indians fell prey to not enough productivity from Ken Topps and too much production from the Warriors rushing offense

as East Cen– tral claimed a 10-7 victory. "The biggest dif– ference in the game, no doubt, was

that they controlled the line of scrimmage," Itawamba coach Jeff Terrill said. Mit's hard to come out on top when a team does that against you.~ Topps was a significant part of the Indians offense, col– lecting for 148 yards on 18-of-29 passing while adding another 22 yards rushing. But the total offense for the Indians was 150 yards, exactly half of the War– riors' 300 total yards of offense. But when Topps is on, ICC (0-2) can be dangerous. The Indians certainly had the War– riors' attention in the second half when Itawamba produced its only points of the contest. Taking advantage of a fumble recovery, ICCmarched 45 yards in five plays. The touchdown came on a pump– fake byTopps, who then found a wide-open Lamarcu!> Windham for a 27-yard score that cut the East Central lead to

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