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ONE-ON-ONE

Avoyelles defender Dujon Bradford (#4) makes a solo tackle on the Giants’ Shan Todd (#8) during last Friday night’s game in Jena. Jena scored three touchdowns in a 5-minute span in the third quarter to win the district opener for both teams. {Photo by Connie Giovanetti}

District Openers: Marksville wins; Avoyelles, Bunkie lose to districts' top teams

Marksville vs. Avoyelles in big 3-AAA contest; Bunkie travels to Winnfield

Marksville continued its win streak at home, Avoyelles got burned by a stingy defense and Bunkie found out firsthand what it’s like to be hit by a potential state champion.

Avoyelles Parish’s three football-playing high schools provided fans with a lot of excitement this past Friday. There were good, solid performances -- even in defeat.

This week there will only be two parish high school football games.

Lest you feel shortchanged, one of those games features District 3-AAA rivals Marksville and Avoyelles.

Marksville will be trying to break its losing streak on the road this season. It is 0-3 so far. Avoyelles will be trying not to spoil its Homecoming festivities with a loss.

Both teams are 3-3 overall, but the Tigers are 1-0 in district, defeating the hapless Bolton Bears last Friday, while Avoyelles ran into the Jena Giants juggernaut and is 0-1.

Bunkie travels to Winn Parish to play ‘Field High this Friday. The Tigers will be trying to put the “Winn” back in their name, after going 0-6 so far.

Meanwhile, the Panthers -- smarting from a whitewashing by another pride of Tigers this past Friday -- are smacking their lips at an opportunity to keep the “win” out of Winnfield to improve their overall record to 2-5 and even the district score at 1-1.

Following is a brief summary of last Friday’s three local games.

For details of those contests, see this week’s Marksville Weekly News and Bunkie Record.

MARKSVILLE 64, BOLTON 27
Coach J.T. Dunbar had seen enough.

After a lopsided Thursday evening road loss to the Abbeville Wildcats the week before, the veteran head coach decided it was time to shake things up with his Marksville Tigers football team. And he didn’t waste any time doing so.

The Tigers’ transformation was evident Friday evening as the Tigers (3-3, 1-0) opened District 3-3A play with a convincing 64-27 victory over the Bolton Bears (1-5. 0-1).

“We started that Friday addressing what needed to be addressed … our lack of physicality and fitting the offense to our personnel.

“We revved it up in practice. I haven’t felt we were as physical as we should have been in our first five games, but that changed,” Dunbar continued. “We had a pretty physical week in practice. Some went down and some got back up but I thought we regained what we had been missing.”

As a matter of fact, practices were so physical four starters had to be held out of the game.

AVOYELLES 2, JENA 31

Those who live by the four-down offense die by the four-down offense.

Just ask Andy Boone and his Avoyelles Mustangs, who saw three 4th down fails deep in their own territory turn into 24 Jena points in another 'fatal five minutes' of last Friday’s district 3-AAA opener.

The Giants went on to remain undefeated with a 31-2 “come from behind” victory over Avoyelles, which had a 2-0 lead at halftime.

BUNKIE 0, MANY 51

The football season was looking better when the Bunkie Panthers scored 67 points and had 791 yards of total offense against Grant on Sept. 29.

A week later, the Panthers hosted one of the top five teams in Class-AA and struggled the entire game.

The Many Tigers held Bunkie to 87 yards of total offense while the Tigers racked up 406 yards of offense in a 51-0 rout last Friday night at Panther Stadium.

The loss dropped Bunkie to 1-5 overall and 0-1 in district play. Many improved to 4-2 overall and 1-0 in league play.

AVOYELLES JOURNAL
BUNKIE RECORD
MARKSVILLE WEEKLY

105 N Main St
Marksville, LA 71351
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