By Kyle Roberts
CABOT, Ark. — If you like touchdowns, then Cabot High was the place for you Friday night as both the Ruston Bearcats (2-0) and Cabot Panthers (0-3) combined for 13 total touchdowns in the game with the Bearcats coming out the victors 63-28.
Despite the blowout score, Ruston Head Coach Jerrod Baugh saw plenty of things his team will need to improve on as the weeks move forward.
“We made it tougher than what it needed to be,” Baugh said. “We’ve still got a lot of things that we need to get cleaned up, and if we don’t get those corrected and we get a really, really good opponent — and we’re going to face one probably next week — then it’s going to be a long ball game for us. And I hate to sound so negative, but I mean, it was pretty disappointing. I thought we had complete control of the game early on, and then we allowed them to hang around and hang around. And, you know, we just didn’t take advantage of the mistakes they were making. And then we made our own and made it a little bit closer to what it needed.“
Ruston started building what appeared to be a comfortable lead early by getting up 14-0 with two consecutive touchdown drives on offense: first with junior quarterback Sam Hartwell scoring from 11 yards out at the 10:14 mark in the first quarter on a four-play drive. Hartwell followed up with a three-yard touchdown throw to junior Ahmad Hudson to go up 14-0 with 3:01 to go in the first quarter.
Following a Bearcat punt, Ruston’s junior Jayden Anding returned a Cabot High fumble by senior Cooper Powell for a scoop-and-score to put Ruston up 21-0 with 2:43 to go in the first.
A deflated Cabot crowd received new life, however on the ensuing kickoff after senior Jaylyn Hart returned the ball 92-yards for the score and cutting Ruston’s lead to 21-7 at the 2:29 mark of the first quarter.
After a Bearcat punt, Cabot added another score to get it back to a one-score lead when Cooper Powell capped off a 55-yard drive with a three-yard touchdown for a 21-14 score with 9:19 to go in the second quarter.
It was Ruston’s Dalen Powell who answered shortly after with a five-yard touchdown run to make it a two-score game again at the 8:27 mark of the second, which was set up by a few good rushing efforts by junior Davis DeMoss.
The Bearcats would force a Cabot punt on the next Panther drive, and a shanked punt by Lucas Blalack gave Ruston the ball on the Panther 33-yard line. Hartwell then connected with junior wideout Josiah Morgan for a 33-yard touchdown with 4:50 to go in the first half for a 35-14 lead.
Hartwell added another long rushing touchdown for Ruston a short time later from 62 yards out with 2:00 left to go in the second quarter to put Ruston up 42-14.
Cabot would still refuse to go away as the Panthers put together a good drive toward the end of the first half with senior Ayden Tatum hauling in two great catches on the drive for the Panthers, the second of which was an eight-yard touchdown grab in the last few seconds of the half to cut Ruston’s lead to 42-21 going into the lockerroom.
The Bearcats would then get the ball to start the second half and weaved together a methodical drive of 12 plays that lasted nearly five minutes. Senior fullback Lander Smith put the ball into the end zone from inside the one-yard line to extend Ruston’s lead to 49-21 with 7:50 to go in the third quarter.
Cabot, again, responded with a touchdown from 59-yards out to sophomore Cannon Moore for a 49-28 score at the 6:42 mark of the third.
Not to be outdone, Hudson would get his second touchdown of the night with a 37-yard, one-handed grab for a touchdown where a Panther defender had what appeared to be good position to knock the ball away to go up 56-28 with 4:40 to go in the third quarter.
After Cabot’s offense sputtered, Ruston would get the ball back and score four plays later in the final few moments of the third quarter when Bearcat Powell scored from 34 yards away to put the Bearcats up 63-28. At that point, the clock began to run for the remainder of the night and Ruston was able to send in the second team after forcing another Cabot punt.
The Bearcats amassed a total of 374 yards rushing, while Hartwell finished 10-for-11 throwing for 197 yards. Powell totaled 171 yards on the ground with two touchdowns, while Hartwell rushed for 110 yards. DeMoss ran for 50 yards on six carries.
“We do have a lot of ability,” Baugh said. “I think Coach Griffin and offensive staff are doing a really good job of creating things for all of those guys, the things that they do well. I think we’ve got some some talent in a lot of different areas, but we’re inexperienced overall, and I think that’s what we’re seeing and the inconsistency, they’re just not mature enough to handle things right now. I hope we we’re going to mature pretty quickly. I mean, with Longview coming in next week, and then we go to Alvarado with Midland and then Stephenville. And I mean, you just keep naming them down the road and then hit our district. If we don’t get some of these things cleaned up and it’s not going to go well.“
Receiving-wise, Hudson led the Bearcats with 74 yards and two TDs, while Morgan was right behind with 70 yards and a score. Junior kicker Joaquin Ramos was perfect on extra points (9-for-9).
Ruston did give up 230 kick return yards on special teams to Cabot.
“We’ve got some things in the special teams that we need to do,” Baugh said. “We overran the kickoff in a lot of our lanes and (Hart) just ran through. They would come the wrong side of a guy and opened up an alley for him to run. And like I say, the other guys overran and didn’t squeeze for the football. And I think we’ve got some things defensively to clean up. We know we’re undersized in the defensive line. They had a big offensive line, which is what I talked about. I thought that that would be one of their advantages. We didn’t get pressure on quarterback when we needed to, and their quarterback made some good throws at times, and we left some guys wide open. So we had some busted coverages, and so we got a lot of things to get back to work and and practice next week.”
Ruston returns to action Friday, Sept. 19, at home against the Longview Lobos for the 2025 home opener. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.
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