By By Jeff Byrd/The Meridian Star
Sept. 6, 2001
The battle for bragging rights for the eastern half of Lauderdale County will be on the line when the Southeast Lauderdale Tigers welcome their arch-rivals from Northeast on Friday night at Tiger Stadium.
Both teams were successful in their season openers pulling off road victories. Southeast slogged through a persistent rain to cool off Coffeeville 13-7 while Northeast plugged up the Heidelberg Oilers 28-0.
Longtime veteran coach Dwane Taylor of Southeast says his team will face an uphill battle against the big and bully Trojans.
New Northeast Head Coach Andy Stevens said his team should get better even though they did open with a shutout of Heidelberg.
What was good is Taylor's biggest concern, the Trojans' strength in the offensive line. Northeast center Tim Walker, right guard Tavio Durr and left guard Tyler Barnett all graded out in their opening game.
They played pretty good, but our tackles didn't," Stevens added.
Driving the Trojan offense was the backfield tandem of Kevin Horne, fullback Marcus Betts and quarterback Steven Dyess.
Dyess had over 100 yards in total offense and scored the team's first touchdown last week. He added a 19-yard pass to Betts to set up another score.
Horne had 67 yards in rushing and scored on TD runs of 20 and 10 yards. Betts had 79 yards in offense which included both running and receiving.
The job of stopping the Trojans could fall to Southeast's interior stoppers in nose guard Carlos Larkin and tackle LaPatric Carlisle.
Despite playing in the Coffeeville muck, the Tigers stayed with their air assault game directed by quarterback Ben Reed.
At Coffeeville, Reed connected on a pair of TD tosses of 45 and 22 yards. The first went to Travis Reed and the second went to Rodrick Baskin.
Special teams, though, were a problem.
Stevens wasn't happy with his kicking game either.
The Trojan defense, however, did come away with a shutout. Middle linebacker Robert Carlisle, defensive tackle Eric Boyd and safety Dontae Walker were all singled out by Stevens for their play against Heidelberg.