For the casual onlooker, there probably wasn’t much to make someone think Westside football had a chance to knock off West Laurens Thursday night.
Nevermind the fact the Raiders came in sitting atop the region standings with Harlem — its only loss of the season — Westside hadn’t exactly been lighting up the world in its previous two games, both fairly lopsided losses to Harlem and Baldwin.
West Laurens came in averaging over 250 rushing yards per game, powered by sophomore Ty Cummings, who averages over 10 yards per carry. Meanwhile, Westside’s standout running back, Jearnarion Kamga, had struggled the last two games.
Those struggles ended Thursday as Kamba’s four rushing touchdowns, J.C. Crawford’s pair of interceptions, and a performance from first-year starting quarterback Jaylen Stone that coach Lee Hutto called “probably his best game of the year” that led Westside to a 28-7 win.
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A complete performance
That’s how Hutto felt about his entire team’s performance, especially in corralling Cummings and the Raiders’ punishing run game.
“I think we played really well defensively,” Hutto said. “They’ve got a really good running back who’s getting a lot of explosive plays. We did a great job of keeping him hemmed up and not letting him get those big, explosive plays. We got them behind the chains and got up on them where they had to throw.
“Offensively, we played well. We got Kamga going, and his backup, Andre Morgan, came in and had some big carries for us. Offensive line and tight ends played really well. We played a complete game and put it all together, and that’s something we hadn’t done all year.”
Second place still in the cards?
With one regular season game left on the slate — a Nov. 9 home game with Howard (4-4, 3-5) — the Patriots picked a great time to peak. They’ll still need plenty of help returning to a top-two position in Region 4-AAA, though.
Region leader Harlem (7-1, 5-1) will play two games in five days—against Richmond Academy on Nov. 5 and at Hephzibah on Nov. 9—to catch up with games missed due to Hurricane Helene. Baldwin (5-3, 5-1), which defeated Howard 49-36 on Thursday, will host West Laurens on Tuesday and travel to Richmond Academy on Saturday, Nov. 9.
Westside’s best-case scenario for a No. 2 seed is to see Baldwin lose to either West Laurens or Richmond. But none of that talk would matter if Westside lays an egg against Howard.
“We’ve just gotta take it one day at a time,” Hutto said. “Come in [Friday] and have a good film session, take care of our bodies over the weekend, and get back to work focusing on Howard. They’re athletic. They’ve got good skill. We’ll have our work cut out for it.”
A wrinkle in time
West Laurens had its work cut out for it trying to stop Kamga and Company Thursday night. After being held to just 112 yards on 26 carries in the previous two games combined, the senior tailback ripped West Laurens for well over 100 yards and all of Westside’s four touchdowns.
Some of that involved Hutto and his coaching staff finding new ways to free their top tailback.
“We put in a couple of wrinkles, some things we hadn’t shown all year,” he said. “Some different formations, personnel groupings we hadn’t shown. Now, I tip my hat to Harlem and Baldwin because both of those teams are really good on defense. Not many teams run the ball against those guys. But we also challenged our offensive linemen all week long.”
Now, with a bye week ahead, Hutto says the challenge is to remain focused on what they can control and not preoccupied with what they cannot.
“If we focus on us, if we keep working to get better each day, if we do that and we get to Saturday in a good place, we’ll be alright.”
