Paris Wildcats Season Ends as Liberty-Eylau Wins Rematch

Everything that went in Paris’ direction the first two weeks of the playoffs went against them on Friday night against the Liberty-Eylau Leopards. The Paris Wildcats season came to an end in the same venue in which it began – Mount Pleasant’s Sam Parker Field. Seven weeks after defeating LE 24–7 to open district play, Paris found themselves on the wrong side of a 48–21 score.

The night started out well for Paris, however. The Wildcats, after winning the coin toss, elected to defer to the second half. Paris’ defender Jalon Pipkins intercepted a Ka’mon Freeman pass on the third play of the game. With the ball on the 27 yard line of LE, Paris only needed four plays to find the endzone as Quez Allen hit Jordan Williams for a 20 yard pass.

The Leopards answered quickly as Freeman found Cedric Ellis for a 47 yard touchdown of their own. The extra point was blocked and picked up by Connor Hummel, who tried running it back but was upended at the 32 yard line of LE.

The first play of the next drive, Quez fumbled the ball and was picked up the Leopard defense. Five plays later, Freeman runs the ball for a six yard touchdown and LE takes the lead. Freeman also ran the ball in for the two-point conversion, giving them a 14–7 advantage over the Wildcats.

It was a sign of things to come for the Wildcats offense, which didn’t look in sync all night long. The Wildcats put the ball on the ground three times in which LE recovered. There were several others that happened as well, but Paris was able to land on them. Quez also threw one interception and had several other passes that went right through the LE defenders’ hands.

“We hadn’t been turning the ball over,” Steven Hohenberger said after the game. “We had three turnovers in the first half…..We just had some missed opportunities.”

Missed opportunities indeed. Trailing 21–14 to start the third quarter, Paris took the opening kickoff at their own 25 yard line and marched all the way down to the 14 of LE. Facing a third down and five, Paris was called for holding which took the ball back to the 24. Quez ran the ball on the next play for 13 yards, setting up a fourth and two from the 11 yard line. The next play wound up being a 12 yard sack and the ball turned over on downs.

Two plays later, LE fumbles the ball and KD Scott recovered at the 29 yard line. Paris, however, could only move down to the 23 before an incomplete fourth down pass turned the ball over on downs. Six plays later, LE extends their lead to 28–14 on a run by Ricardo Lockett.

“In the third quarter we got down into the red zone a couple times; well one we drove it down there,” Hohenberger said. “We just weren’t able to execute. I’m sure tomorrow morning we will look at the film and I’ll be like, ‘we probably should have called something better.’ We didn’t score and that would have been huge.”

The game just snowballed from there for the Wildcats as LE scored 20 more points. The only other Paris’ score came on a turnover by the LE offense. With a new quarterback in the game, the snap went over his head and rolled into the endzone. Scott was able to beat everyone else to it and picked it up in the endzone for the Wildcat score.

Paris has nothing to hang their heads about, though. This team went further than any other Paris High team outside the 1988 state champion team. Hohenberger and his staff are building a program that they hope will eventually end up as the last team standing when the season is over. Congrats to the Paris High Wildcats on a tremendous season.

                      1       2       3       4       Final 

Paris           7      7        0       7          21

LE              14     7       14     13        48

Stats

                                                                   LE                          Paris

1st Downs                                             22                             20

Total Yards                                         433                          353

Rushes/Yards                                 47/258                   47/265

Comp/Att/Int                                13/18/1                   6/25/1

Penalties/Yards                             9/76                            9/94

Turnovers                                           3                                   4

Punts/Yards                                    1/54                            3/121

Scoring Plays:

1st Quarter

Paris – Jordan Williams 20 yard catch from Quez Allen (Alfredo Medina kick); 7–0; 9:05

LE – Cedric Ellis 47 yard catch from Ke’mon Freeman (kick blocked); 7–6; 6:58

LE – Freemans 6 yard run (2pt Conv. good); 7–14; 4:25

2nd Quarter

Paris – Dren Rollerson 3 yard run (Medina kick); 14–14; 3:44

LE – Freeman 1 yard run (Demario Manley kick); 14–21; 1:31

3rd Quarter LE – Ricardo Lockett 2 yard run (Manley Kick); 14–28; 2:42 LE – Freeman 6 yard run (manley kick); 14–35; 1:06

4th Quarter

LE – Lamont Byrd 23 yard run (Manley kick); 14–42; 7:00 Paris – KD Scott fumble recovery in endzone (Medina Kick); 21–42; 5:32

LE – Freeman 9 yard run (Kick missed); 21–48; 2:55  

By: Greg Higgins, eParisExtra
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