It's hard to turn regular season success into postseason wins, a fact Homewood can now relate to. They fell just short of the Fort Payne Wildcats by a score of 35-32 on Friday. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game last Friday (31), the Patriots still had to take the loss.
Despite the loss, Homewood still got an impressive performance from Kaleb Carson, who rushed for 195 yards and two touchdowns while picking up 9.8 yards per carry, and also threw for 240 yards and a touchdown. Those 195 rushing yards gave Carson a new career-high. A healthy portion of Carson's aerial production (122 yards to be exact) went to Kylen Newell, who also brought in a receiving touchdown.
Even though they lost, Homewood was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 265 rushing yards. That's a new trend for them: they were averaging 161 rushing yards per game earlier this season, but in their last three contests they've averaged 0.
Fort Payne's win was the result of several impressive offensive performances. One of the most notable came from Dax Varnadore, who threw for 277 yards and a touchdown. Carter Blalock helped Varnadore out on the ground, rushing for 57 yards and two touchdowns.
The defeat snapped Homewood's winning streak at three games and leaves them with a 9-3 record. As for Fort Payne, the win (which was their tenth in a row) raised their record to 10-2.
Homewood does not have any more games scheduled as of now. As for Fort Payne, they will venture away from home to take on Oxford at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Oxford knows how to get points on the board -- the team has finished with 31 points or more in their past four matchups -- so hopefully Fort Payne likes a good challenge.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
