Featured photo courtesy of Minden High School
A strong defensive effort and big plays helped the Minden Crimson Tide defeat the North Webster Knights 20-14 in a season opener Friday night at Baucum-Farrar Stadium.
Minden avenged a 21-20 home loss to the Knights in Week 4 last season in The Battle of the Boot.
“Oh, man, that game’s always like that,” Minden Head Coach Spencer Heard said. “I told (North Webster Head Coach Christopher) Wilson, it seems like every time we play that game, it doesn’t matter what we got or what they got, it always comes down to like a score or two and just a couple of possessions here or there.”
Said Wilson: “Yeah, man, good, good, good, good, really, really quality high school football game tonight.”
Minden took the 20-14 lead on a 60-yard touchdown run by junior Jaden Johnson with 3:53 left in the third quarter. Kaiden King passed to Ian Clark for the two-point conversion.
North Webster put together a drive late in the game that reached the Minden 26. But on fourth-and-11 the Tide made a stop for a 3-yard loss.
Minden then kept the ball the rest of the game, driving to the Knights 3 before getting into victory formation.
“I was really proud of our defense,” Heard said. “I thought they played excellent for the majority of the night. They gave up one score early on. We missed a couple of tackles on this guy (running back Braylon Washington) and they popped it down the sideline. Other than that, I mean, we played lights out on defense.”
On North Webster’s late drive, the Tide had to reach down deep to get the stop.
“They kind of had us on our heels a little bit,” Heard said. “We were tired, but our guys just rallied and found it within themselves to stop them and got us the ball back and we were able to get some runs and get down there and run the clock out.”
Minden limited North Webster to 158 total yards, per stats kept for the KBEF-FM radio and Facebook broadcast, and 66 of that came on Washington’s TD run in the first quarter.
Wilson also thought his defense played well.
“Defense played lights out as they normally do,” he said.
But Wilson thought Minden’s defensive line made the difference.
“We got bullied up front and we didn’t do a good job of matching their intensity or matching their toughness on the interior, and we really never could get the offense going,” he said. “We had a couple spurts in spots, but nothing necessarily where we sustained anything. Our defense kept us in the game, pretty much all game.”
Minden started strong offensively. Sophomore Kaiden King threw touchdown passes of 27 and 19 yards to Johnson in the first five minutes of clock time.
After a stellar sophomore season, Johnson entered this season with high expectations.
He caught six passes for 97 yards in addition to his go-ahead touchdown run.
“He made plays tonight,” Heard said. “He did his job. Early on he had a couple of corner routes for touchdowns and later on he had a long (touchdown) run down the sideline. His athleticism and speed was on full display tonight.”
North Webster’s Jardin Gill returned an interception 70 yards for a touchdown with 8:59 left in the second quarter. Heath Hamilton’s PAT gave the Knights a 14-12 lead. That was the last score of the first half.
Both teams had to deal with the brutal hit. Heard said no Minden player had to leave the game because of leg cramps but several came close. Several North Webster players had to.
Wilson said an issue with the air conditioning in an area under the stadium kept the Knights from getting a break from the heat at the half.
Minden finished with 216 yards rushing. Sophomore Jardon Carey had a big night with 112 yards on 11 carries.
King rushed for 49 yards on seven carries. Making his first start, he completed 12-of-25 passes for 134 yards with two interceptions.
“I thought he did well tonight,” Heard said. “it’s like I say, it’s still a work in progress in learning right here and he made some mistakes, but he did a lot of good stuff. Very proud of what he did and I think it’s going to be just kind of a deal where we go back and look at the film and learn.”
Minden host Homer Friday. The Pelicans fell to Homer 42-30 in their opener.
North Webster travels to Shreveport to face Green Oaks Thursday at Northwood’S Jerry Burton Memorial Stadium. The Giants routed Southwood 44-0 in their opener.