Hawks celebrate turnaround win

A game one win is always big, but for Holly Springs, it was much more than big. It was super.

The Hawks squelched memories of an 0-10 season last year as they celebrated a 28-25 victory over Mantachie Friday night on Danny Warren Memorial Field at Sam Coopwood Park.

“Relieved,” head coach Clifford Brown said when asked the morning after the game how he was feeling. “I preached to my guys that this was our Super Bowl, and they responded. But I wasn’t shocked. I believe we were the better team.”

The Hawks fell behind early but answered. In the second half, they led 28-13 and then had to survive some mistakes and come up with crucial plays in the final minutes to win.

“We shot ourselves in the foot in the last few minutes, and that made it closer,” Brown said. “Our goal going in was to score 36 points, and we fell a little short of that. I felt we could be explosive. Our key players did what they’re supposed to do for us to win the game.”

Martravion Davis passed for all four Holly Springs touchdowns. Taylen Gatewood was on the receiving end of 25and 45-yard scores. The other scores came on a 10-yard strike to Carlos Jones and a 15-yard toss to Karon Finley. Davis kept for a two-point conversion, and Kyson Isom ran for the other two. The Hawks will look

to keep the momentum going when they go to H.W. Byers this week for a Thursday night contest. The Lions lost 26-6 to Byhalia in week one.

“We can’t let our guard down,” Brown said. “We made mistakes, and we need to clean those up. We have to continue to progress as a team and take it one game at a time. I believe in this group.”