By T. Scott Boatright
BASTROP — What was a tight game in the first half ended up being a runaway for the Lincoln Preparatory School football team in the final 24 minutes as the Panthers went on the road and roared past Beekman Charter 45-8 Thursday night at Tiger Stadium.
It took the Lincoln Prep offense a while to get going as the Panthers led only 8-0 at halftime thanks to a Verlanski Glosson pick six returned 50 yards to paydirt, marking his fourth interception over the past two games.
“We really should have scored more in the first half,” Hall said. “We blew a lot of opportunities in those first two quarters. But we came back in the second half and made up for it. And more importantly, this team finished it when they had the chance.”
That came after Lincoln Prep, which had used a lot of center snap sets in the first half with senior Jordan Brown at quarterback, went pretty much entirely to the Wildcat offensive set for the third and fourth quarters.
“We ran predominately Wildcat in the second half and our three-headed monster (Glosson, D’Tavion Wright and Jaylin Huntley) took over on the ground and ran away with it,” Hall said. “Beekman got to the point that they didn’t know who we were going to go to or who to key on and they started getting tired and it all just snowballed on them.
“It was like we just kind of flipped the switch and everybody started playing hard. I am proud of the way this team played tonight.”
Nursing a sore ankle injured earlier this week in practice, Huntley managed a 60-yard scoring scamper while Wright ran for three scores during his snaps as the Wildcat quarterback.
And Glosson scored on both offense and defense as he ran for a score as another of the Panthers’ Wildcat quarterbacks.
“We played three different quarterbacks,” Hall said. “We played Jordan Brown at quarterback and then moved to splitting time between Wright and Glosson as the Wildcat quarterback.”
Beekman’s lone touchdown came in the fourth quarter to cut Lincoln Prep’s lead to 24-8.
“Beekman has a good offense, but our defense shut them down the whole first half,” Hall said. “They couldn’t do anything with that little veer they run.
“We stacked the line on them and tackled well. Tyler Wimberly did a great job for us at the middle linebacker position. He held it down and did a great job.”
After the Tigers’ lone touchdown, the Panthers roared away.
“Our offense just went on a rampage,” Hall said. “Beekman ended up asking for a running clock a little later just wanting to get the game over with.”
Next up for the Panthers, now 2-1, will be a game next Thursday at Jonesboro-Hodge, which stands at 0-2 heading into a game Friday night at Delhi.
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