Bunkie wins high-scoring nailbiter, Avoyelles dominates foe, Marksville drops third road game of the season

The three football playing high schools in Avoyelles Parish ended their non-district season this past Friday with fan-pleasing scoring fireworks. They open their district season this Friday, Bunkie in District 3-AA travels to Many. In District 3-AAA, Avoyelles goes to Jena and Marksville hosts Bolton.

Bunkie had its first win of the season in a school record-breaking effort against the larger Grant High.

Avoyelles found the scoreboard on the road against Northside after being limited to one score the week before.

Marksville continued its winless ways as a visitor, falling apart late to lose big to Abbeville last Thursday night.

Following are brief summaries of those three games. For more details, read this week’s editions of the Marksville Weekly News and Bunkie Record.

BUNKIE 67, GRANT 60

There was the Bunkie-Jennings game in the mid-1980s and the 62-60 win over Avoyelles a few years back.

But the game that will be talked about for many years is this past Friday night’s Bunkie-Grant contest.

It was a record-setting evening by everyone’s standards.

Let’s start with the final score, Bunkie hung on for a thrilling 67-60 win before a large Homecoming crowd at Panther Stadium.

The combined total of 127 points is believed to be the most in Bunkie football history.

The teams combined for 1,101 yards of total offense, ran a 113 plays and committed eight turnovers.

Bunkie’s offense clicked for 791 yards. While records can’t be found, many say this is the most yards of offense by any Bunkie team.

Then the play of Bunkie quarterback Jaylan Mays. One year ago, he was on the sidelines recovering from a gunshot wound and missed the entire year.

Against Grant, he made up for his lost time, as the senior rushed for an amazing 413 yards on just 15 carries and scored five touchdowns. He also caught a pass early in the game for 22 yards.

AVOYELLES 48, NORTHSIDE 22

At the midway point of the season, the Avoyelles Mustangs are right where their coach expected they would be at this time even before the ball was teed up for the first kickoff.

This past Friday night ended the non-district half of the football season. Coach Andy Boone had said his team would probably be 3-2, and he was hoping for 4-1, going into the district schedule.

The Mustangs destroyed the Northside Vikings, 48-22, in Lafayette to improve their win-loss record to 3-2.

The Class-AAAA Vikings also ended their non-district season at 3-2.

The game was not as close as the score might indicate.

MARKSVILLE 16, ABBEVILLE 39

The look of frustration on Coach J.T. Dunbar’s face told the story Thursday evening.

Five weeks into the season, there are more questions than answers, especially after Marksville’s inexplicable 39-16 collapse against the 5A Abbeville Wildcats (2-3) in a rare Thursday night road game for the Tigers.

“I told them afterwards it was my fault,” Dunbar said. “We didn’t respond very well. I challenged them at halftime and it definitely wasn’t pleasant in that locker room. It seemed in the second half we took a big step back.”

And that is worrisome since the Tigers (2-3) enter district play Friday against the Bolton Bears. The Thursday night road loss is the Tigers’ third in four weeks.

“The road hasn’t been kind to us,” said Dunbar. “This season all three of our losses have been on the road and we’ve got to figure how to win there because we still have more games ahead.”