If you have to describe the Camden County football season with a song, Jimmy Buffett’s “Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season” comes to mind. The Wildcats didn’t finish their three-game Florida swing because of Hermine, which waffled back and forth between being a hurricane and a tropical storm. Hermine pelted the Georgia coast with wind and rain, forcing cancellations for most Southeast Georgia and Florida coast events.
A lopsided loss to the visiting power McEachern Indians did set up an opportunity for the Wildcats to win the 2016 Homecoming game against Forest Park. The Panthers’ most famous alumni is former Georgia utility player Hines Ward, and Panthers head coach Dale Myers has ties to Camden County.
The Wildcats started the game firing on all cylinders with the defensive front forcing turnovers and with Wildcats defensive back Cameron Roberts pulling down an interception to give the Wildcats a 20-0 lead in the first quarter. Panthers quarterback Rayshawn Meisner fired a perfect slant to his tight end for a 16-yard touchdown and connected again for the two-point conversion to cut the Wildcats’ lead to 20-8 early in the second quarter.
Meisner continued to challenge the Wildcats pass defense all night, throwing intermediate and deep routes to try to keep the Panthers offense moving.
Forest Park continually tried to kick onside, giving the Wildcats ideal field position. Following the Panthers’ first score, Camden County quarterback and senior John Jones hit Devegas Austin with a 15-yard scoring strike, adding to the Wildcat lead 26-8.
Forest Park needed one single play to strike back against the Wildcats. Meisner hit Aver Wilson with an 80-yard touchdown pass, getting within two scores of Camden County.
The Wildcats stormed back, putting 41 points in the second and third quarters. Among the highlights are a six-play drive that resulted in a four-yard touchdown run from Miley Packard. Tyreke Williams snatched an errant Panther pass and ran it back 35 yards for a touchdown. Camden ended up winning 67-14. The lopsided game gave the Wildcats an opportunity to give some younger players varsity experience.
“We are very young,” head coach Welton Coffey said. “Sometimes it’s like burping babies. We need to be able to get these younger players experience when we can so they can understand the speed and intensity of the varsity level.”
The only real negative for the Wildcats on the night of Homecoming 2016 was racking up 150 penalty yards.
“Obviously you’re disappointed to get some penalties like we got, but you also look at a scoreboard that is one sided, which usually leads to more penalties,” Coffey said. “But overall we played better tonight. We are starting to grow up more and be able to get better. We certainly better do that before we get into region play because our region doesn’t let teams make mistakes without capitalizing on them.”
Since Camden County’s reclassification into AAAAAAA, a lot of teams had to end up finding more non-conference games to fill the holes region changes created in the schedule. When Camden grabbed its first win against Brunswick 7-6, Camden County hoped to still finish with a 10-game regular season when neighboring Charlton had an open week and also lost a game because of Hermine.
“We scrimmaged Charlton for years, but hadn’t played them in regular season,” Coffey said. “Both of us ended up having an open date, so it looked like it would be great. A team like Charlton, you can throw records out. It’s definitely a rivalry type atmosphere and what high school football and the Friday Night Lights are all about.”
However just as Hermine left the open date, Hurricane Matthew came in and snatched the date away. Camden opened region play on the road against a resurgent Colquitt County team. The Packers took some hard losses early but put together four solid quarters of football to defeat Camden County 56-10. The Wildcats go back on the road to face Lowndes at the Concrete Palace before ending the 2016 campaign at home against Tift County on Nov. 4. Last season the Wildcats defeated both Lowndes and Tift.
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Wildcats Fight Weather and Tough Region
Written by John Wood
