By Jacob Govero (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Forsyth jumped out to a 26-0 lead in the first quarter on its way to a 48-33 win over Diamond for the first varsity home win in program history.
The start was indicative of how the Panthers have played this season.
“We’ve been kind of a Jekyll and Hyde team so far this season, the two games we’ve won we started out strong, the two we’ve lost have been the opposite and there hasn’t been any in between, but I’m hoping we can have more like this,” Forsyth head coach Tommie Anderson said.
Forsyth started the scoring on its first possession of the game. Senior receiver Anthony Stanford hauled in a 50-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Dawson Deroo putting the Panthers up 6-0.
On Diamond’s ensuing possession Forsyth junior Johnny Mayhew intercepted an errant pass from Cameron Addington and took it all the way to the end zone making it a 12-0 game at the 10:23 mark of the first quarter.
Diamond would go three and out on their next drive leading to another score by Forsyth.
Driving the ball downfield, the Panthers capped it off with another touchdown by Mayhew but this time on the ground to make it 20-0.
A quarterback sack by Forsyth once again forced Diamond to punt and they would capitalize immediately. Rocha caught a pass and turned it into a 45-yard score. Once the dust settled on the first quarter Forsyth had built a 26-0 lead on the visiting Wildcat team.
It was quite a hole to dig out of, but Diamond would begin to battle back. The Wildcats responded by scoring the next 13 points of the game to cut Forsyth’s lead in half 26-13 at 7:47 of the second quarter. The scoring was capped by sophomore running back Colbin Brown’s nine-yard touchdown run.
Diamond Head Coach Curtis Horton was proud of how his team responded.
“We’re awfully young this year and we’re debating with ourselves if we can compete with these guys and in the middle of the first quarter we found that hey, we can compete with these guys and we did,” Horton said.
Forsyth responded with another interception returned for a touchdown when junior Cyrus Ketchersid took the ball in from 43 yards out making the score 34-13 at halftime.
The two teams would trade scoring drives in the second half. After Rocha’s touchdown made the score 48-25 Diamond would score their last points of the game off another touchdown run from Brown. That final score game Brown four rushing touchdowns for the game to go along with 136 yards.
Dawson Deroo led Forsyth with 301 yards through the air with two touchdowns. Miciah Rocha had 174 yards receiving and two touchdowns.
It has been an emotional run for the Panthers and a year of many firsts. This is the inaugural varsity season for their program.
“It was a big relief when we started the season, we started out with a junior high program and we’ve been waiting for this year to come for four years. I felt a big relief after our first game. This week finally felt like a normal football week for us,” Anderson said.
Forsyth improved to 2-2 overall. Diamond fell to 0-4.
Forsyth 26 8 0 14 – 48
Diamond 0 13 6 14 – 33
