OJHS Panthers take down the Leveretts Chapel Lions

LEFT: Damyne Durham takes out a Leveretts Lion on his way to the endzone. Photo by Melissa Missildine The Oakwood Junior High Panthers had the Leveretts Chapel Lions over to their den Thursday night. The fight was on. The battle went back and forth through all four quarters with the Panthers ending up on top.

Leveretts Chapel scored the first touchdown of the game and then the extra point. When Oakwood got the ball, it was handed off to Jaquez Forte. He tried to run it in, only to find a Lion in his path. Forte did the only thing he could: he ran him over. Forte didn't score a touchdown on that play but he took that Lion out of the game. It was undeniably the hardest hit of the night. Leveretts Chapel picked up the next touchdown but was denied the extra point. Louis Collins made sure of that. He was knocking down Lions all night and had the best tackling stats for Oakwood. Jon Venable and William Barnett were really on their defensive game as well. Between them, they put some mighty hard hits on those Lions.

BELOW: Jaquez Forte (#15) goes up for a pass with William Barnett blocking. Photo by Melissa Missildine Oakwood had a fumbling problem Thursday night but managed to recover... most of the time. The next TD by the Lions was from a Panther fumble picked up in the endzone. Leveretts Chapel picked up the extra point. It was not the way the Panthers had hoped to start off the second quarter. Forte got another chance, and took his TD to bring the score to 6-19. Damyne Durham came up with the next touchdown. He had to fight his way through a pack of Lions to get it and then ran in the extra point. He liked it so much, he did it again, bringing the score to 20-19. Durham picked up the next TD and extra point as well. Not satisfied with just scoring, Durham put in some good hits in this quarter. The extra point before Durham countered it with the same. Leveretts Chapel picked up the next TD at the third quarter buzzer but Oakwood put a stop to the attempt at the extra point. This left the score at 34-26 in favor of the Panthers.

In the fourth quarter, Leveretts Chapel made the first score. Then Durham picked up a TD on the kickoff and ran in the extra point as well. Leveretts Chapel picked up the next score but Durham stopped them from getting the extra point, again. Durham ran in the next touchdown off a pass from Maurice Emmanuel. No extra point this time for Oakwood. Leveretts Chapel got the next TD and the extra point. Durham picked up the next two TDs before Leveretts Chapel could make another one. The last TD for the Panthers was by Durham with 23 seconds left in the game. Thomas Nicholson, another of Oakwood's hard hitters, ran in the extra point. Oakwood let the Lions slide in another TD and the extra point with nine seconds left. With three seconds on the clock, Oakwood took a knee and the nail-biter with a final score of 54-52.