By ANN THARP
Special to The Leader
It was homecoming on Friday night at James B. Abraham Stadium as the Lonoke Jack-rabbits hosted the Newport Greyhounds.
The Jackrabbits fought hard, but could not overcome turnovers and 246 rushing yards by Newport’s running back Carl Turner, as the Greyhounds prevailed for the 36-18 victory.
Lonoke fell to 2-3 overall and 0-2 in conference play, while Newport picked up its first win on the year.
“We turned the ball over three times on offense, and we probably dropped two that would have been a touchdown,” said Lonoke coach Doug Bost. “We kind of shot ourselves in the foot tonight. Defensively, they had success just blitzing, sometimes five or six right at us, and had success on it. We had a couple more get hurt tonight. We’ve already had a stack of injuries hit us, but we’ve got to get people ready to play and got to go on next week and try to get a win.”
Newport had the first possession of the game and lost no time putting points on the board as quarterback Quavion Harris connected with Darrin Moore for a 69-yard touchdown. The two-point conversion was no good, but the Greyhounds had the 6-0 lead.
The two teams exchanged punts before Lonoke tied the score on a 22-yard run by Justin Meadows.
Meadows had another 22-yard run previously in the drive. The extra point was blocked, so the score remained 6-6.
The first Jackrabbit turnover came on the next Lonoke possession, as quarterback Savonte Rountree was intercepted.
The Greyhounds turned the miscue into a touchdown on a 57-yard run by Turner on the first play from scrimmage to take a 12-6 lead on the last play of the first quarter. Again, Newport went for a two-point conversion and failed.
The Greyhounds scored again with 3:18 to go in the half after driving down the field from their own 16-yard line. The two-point conversion fell incomplete to leave the score 18-6.
Lonoke’s drive on the ensuing possession ended in a fumble, so that remained the score at intermission.
After punts were exchanged to start the second half, Lonoke had the ball on its own 14-yard line. On the first play, a fumble occurred and was recovered by Newport on the 10-yard line.
Turner took the ball into the end zone from there on the first play, and the lead increased to 24-6 with 5:55 to go in the third quarter. Again, the two-point conversion was no good.
The Jackrabbits responded with a 78-yard kickoff return by Casey Martin to trim the lead back to 24-12. This two-point conversion attempt was also no good.
Newport pinned Lonoke on its own 4-yard line on a punt, and received excellent field position on the Lonoke 29 after forcing a punt from the end zone.
Five plays later, Darrien Roddy scored from two yards out. The trend continued as the two-point conversion was no good, and the lead was 30-12 in favor of the visitors.
The Jackrabbits put together a 69-yard scoring drive which included two completions from Rountree to Ethan Holland for 27 and 12-yard gains.
On second and goal from the nine, Martin capped off the drive with his second touchdown of the evening. After yet another failed two-point conversion, the score was 30-18.
Turner scored the last touchdown of the evening on a 33-yard run to set the final score at 36-18 after the final missed conversion attempt of the contest. There was 8:17 remaining in the game.
Steven Barrett returned the following kickoff to the Lonoke 46-yard line, where the Jackrabbits picked up two first downs to the Greyhound 29-yard line before turning the ball over on downs.
Meadows led Lonoke with 70 yards rushing, all but 3 coming in the first half. Josh Coleman rushed for 50 yards for Lonoke..
The Jackrabbits travel to Southside Batesville next Friday night.
