The Franklinton Demons football team fought a good fight but came on the short end of a 14-3 score last week against Mandeville in the Mandeville Jamboree. The Demons will play the Amite Warriors this week at home in a non-district game. Last week Amite defeated Bogalusa in their jamboree 28-0.
The Skippers were on offense first and the Demons forced them to punt. After the Demons punted the Skippers scored on a 15 yard pass with 7:49 left in the first half.
Jayden Burkhalter returned the kickoff down to the Mandeville 24 yard line to give the Demons a great scoring opportunity. The Demons eventually turned the ball over on downs.
Mandeville scored on a five yard run with 4:42 left in the first half to go up 14-0. The Demons moved down to the Skippers end of the field and settled for a 31 yard field goal attempt, which was good by Liam Young for a halftime score of 14-3.
The second half was plagued by penalties but the Demons defense showed out on a nice goal line stand as they held the Skippers at the one. Thereafter, they settled for a field goal attempt which was no good.
The Demons then drove to the Skippers eleven yard line and also settled for a field goal attempt. The snap was bad and a pass into the endzone was incomplete. Neither team threatened to score again for the remainder of the game and the Skippers went away with a 14-3 victory over the Demons.
Coach Nick Saltaformaggio, in his fourth season as head coach of the Demons, saw what his team needs to work on. "It will sound like a broken record. Two really good teams played. I like playing them because they expose our weaknesses. We gave up too many big plays defensively in the secondary in the first half and didn't finish drives that went deep into the red zone. Overall, we showed great physicality and battled. Now on to the ones that count."
Kerston Diddon was 12 of 17 passing for 110 yards while rushing 3 times for 7 yards. Ricardo Burris rushed 7 times for 24 yards, Chakyn McClain rushed twice for ten yards and Stephen Tate rushed three times for nine yards. Jayden Burkhalter was the leading receiver catching 7 passes for 70 yards, McClain caught 1 for 15, Rhett Anderson caught 1 for 12 yards, Preston Venables caught 2 for 11 yards and Tate caught 1 for 2 yards.
