What a fantastic weekend of high school football! This week KDMC honors two game-changers that had outstanding performances on the football field this past Friday.

Offensive Player of the Week

This week’s Offensive Player of the Week goes to Brookhaven Academy’s young superstar, Landon Nettles. Nettles is a sophomore RB and wears the number 33. He is the first underclassmen to receive a KDMC Player of the Week award, and after looking at his stats from Friday, it’s not hard to see why. In a game where BA had three key injuries, it was vital for someone to step up in order to beat Wayne Academy; and they did just that. While the Cougars tough 38-28 victory was a team effort, no one seized the opportunity to step up quite like Nettles. He rushed for a career high 234 yards on just 24 carries averaging 9.7 yards per carry. He also had two rushing TDs on the night. This performance is impressive for any player at any level of football, but especially for an underclassman in a high-pressure environment. While you can often judge the value of a player by numbers on a piece of paper, there are some qualities that don’t show up on the stat sheet. Nettles demonstrated a great deal of maturity and poise being without a lot of senior leadership, and then proved to be opportunistic when the game was on the line. At the end of the day, what more can you ask for? It excites me to even think about how good this kid will be as a senior. The Cougars look to improve to 5-1 this Friday when they travel to Centreville, MS to take on Centreville Academy at 7:30 PM.

 Defensive Player of the Week

This week’s Defensive Player of the Week goes to Bogue Chitto’s Kevin Brothern….. again. As mentioned in a previous article, Brothern is a 6’1’’ 225 lb senior ILB at BCHS who is garnering major attention from colleges across the nation. He is the first repeat KDMC Player of the Week award winner, and after his performance this past weekend, we would be amiss to have not selected him. Along with some steady offense, Brothern led the Bobcats to a 46-22 runaway victory over Resurrection Catholic. He had 14 tackles, 1 interception, and 1 fumble recovery in the game. The contest was only 15-8 at halftime before Brothern and the Bobcat defense shutdown the Resurrection offense in the second half. He also had a solid performance at left guard on offense. I expected to see a repeat award winner, just not this soon. But when a kid is playing at this high of a level, you must give credit where credit is due. This win advances the Bobcats to 5-0 on the season ranking No. 4 in Class 1-A prep. Needless to say, if Brothern and gang continue to shine, they are going to be a tough team to beat. The Bobcats will look to stay unbeaten as they travel to Utica, MS this Friday to take on Hinds County Agricultural at 7:30 PM.

Congratulations from KDMC to both athletes on exceptional performances on the gridiron. Keep up the great work and best wishes throughout the rest of the season! Be sure to go to www.kdmc.org next Monday to see who will be this week’s Players of the Week.