Pike County defeats Daleville

An injury-stricken Daleville High School football team was defeated 29-14 by Pike County Friday night.

“It was an accumulation of not being a very healthy football team,” Daleville coach Brad McCoy said. “We have some guys out of place because we’re trying to fill in the void areas. It has our team in a bad situation.”

The Warhawks were the only team to find the end zone in the first quarter when quarterback Jonathan Pittman completed a pass to DeMarcus Flowers for a 45-yard touchdown. Daleville missed the extra point, but took a 6-0 lead.

Neither team was able to score in the second quarter, and the Warhawks went into the locker room for halftime with a 6-0 lead.

Pike County scored on its first possession of the second half to tie the game at 6-6 after missing its extra point.

The Warhawks didn’t back down, however, and managed to gain the lead on their next possession when Pittman ran a zone-option play for a 34-yard touchdown.

Daleville completed a two-point conversion, and had a 14-6 lead.

“He made a heck of a play,” McCoy said. “We knew at halftime we could do some things with that kind of formation. We just couldn’t even get it going again after that.”

The Bulldogs tied the game again when they scored on a 2-yard run and completed a two-point conversion.

Pike County furthered its lead at the end of the third quarter when it recorded a 33-yard touchdown run to give the Bulldogs a 22-14 lead.

The Bulldogs tallied the final touchdown of the game in the fourth quarter to close out the game with a score of 29-14 over Daleville. 

During the second half, penalties hindered the Warhawks.

“We took a lot of penalties in the second half,” McCoy said. “That’s hurt us in all of the three games we’ve lost. Pike County capitalized on us taking them. We played good enough to win in the first half, but our second half has been our Achilles’ heel.”

The team plans to put the loss behind it, McCoy said, focus on not committing penalties and getting the team healthy again.

“It’s frustrating because I hate it for these kids,” he said. “Our kids deserve to be successful. They put in a lot of hours and work hard. I know that’s the toughest thing to understand is why we’re putting in all this time and not getting results.”

Labrijian Bloodsaw led the Warhawks in rushing with 19 carries for 87 yards. Pittman followed with 12 carries for 43 yards. Flowers recorded two carries for 15 yards.

Pittman completed four of 11 pass attempts for 84 yards.

Flowers led in receiving with two catches for 64 yards.

Daleville recorded 224 yards of total offense in the game.

The Warhawks will travel to compete against Dale County in a Class 3A, Region 2 game on Oct. 11. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.