Hughes overwhelmed McEachern with long strikes, scoring five of its seven touchdowns on plays of 51 yards or more, and rolled past the host Indians 47-21 Friday night in Powder Springs.
Hughes quarterback Prentiss “Air” Noland was 14-of-22 passing for 319 and had touchdown passes covering 28, 75, 58 and 51 yards. He did most of his damage in the first half, with 239 yards and three touchdowns.
None was more important than his final touchdown of the first half, a 58-yarder to Terrance Love with four seconds remaining before halftime that increased the Panthers’ lead to 26-14. McEachern had cut the lead to 20-14 on a 3-yard touchdown run by Shamar Hall just 50 seconds earlier. The Indians would not get any closer.
The Panthers, ranked No. 1 in Class 6A, improved to 2-0 and scored 47 points for the second consecutive week. They defeated South Carolina power Spartanburg 47-16 last week.
“We were able to be successful in a couple of different ways tonight,” Hughes coach Daniel Williams said. “Our offense did a good job of just finding the holes and coming together to see what would really work for us.”
Noland is the No. 14 junior quarterback nationally in the 247Sports Composite rankings and has a reported 27 offers.
The defense contributed to the big-play scores with two of its own. After Hughes scored on its first possession of the game on a 28-yard pass from Noland to Jelani Thurman, McEachern tried to answer and drove inside the Hughes 30. On a first-down play at the 21, Ahmad Howard picked up a fumble and ran 75 yards for a score to increase the lead to 12-0.
Dmitry Wells provided the other defensive touchdown, a 73-yard interception return with 2:35 remaining in the game.
McEachern (0-2) was still within 34-21 after an 8-yard touchdown pass from Jaydon Kinney to Treyvon Copeland with 4:40 remaining, but Hughes responded two plays later with Thurman’s second touchdown catch of the night, a 51-yarder to push the lead back to 19 points. Wells’ interception return then sealed the victory.
Hughes finished with 472 yards of total offense, including 153 rushing on 31 carries. Jekail Middlebrook had the Panthers’ only rushing touchdown, a 41-yarder late in the third quarter that gave Hughes a 34-14 lead. He had 61 yards on seven carries. Justus Savage led Hughes with 67 yards on 15 carries.
The big plays tilted the yards-per-play averages heavily in the Panthers’ favor. McEachern ran 20 more plays than Hughes but averaged just 3.5 yards per play compared to 8.9 for the Panthers.
“They just happened to be big plays [tonight],” Williams said. “We try to get drives going. Going into halftime there was 3:47 left, we wanted to get a drive, we made a big play and then fumbled. So we definitely want to learn to wind the clock down and do a good job with that.”
Jaylon Brown was the workhorse for McEachern, which finished with 266 total yards. Brown ran for 123 yards on 28 carries and scored on a 13-yard run in the second quarter. Kinney passed for 140 yards, most of which came in the second half.
Hughes - 12-14-8-13 - 47
McEachern - 0-14-0-7 - 21
First quarter
H - Jelani Thurman 28 pass from Prentiss “Air” Noland (kick failed), 10:03
H - Ahmad Howard 75 fumble return (pass failed), 5:07
Second quarter
M - Jaylon Brown 13 run (Lucas Wynn kick), 11:35
H - Robert “C.J.” Lockhart 75 pass from Noland (Jaden Barnes pass from Noland), 4:16
M - Shamar Hall 3 run (Wynn kick), 0:54
H - Terrance Love 58 pass from Noland (run failed), 0:04
Third quarter
H - Jekail Middlebrook 41 run (Middlebrook run), 3:33
Fourth quarter
M - Treyvon Copeland 8 pass from Jaydon Kinney (Wynn kick), 4:40
H - Thurman 51 pass from Noland (kick failed), 4:17
H - Dmitry Wells 73 interception return (Joshua Solano kick), 2:35
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