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JAMESTOWN — Two second-half defensive stands and a late touchdown pass helped Ragsdale defeat Dudley 18-8 Friday night, avenging a playoff loss to the Panthers from last season.

The loss also snapped Dudley’s 23-game winning streak. The Panthers last defeat came against Western Alamance,
14-7, on Oct. 29, 2007.

With the Tigers ahead 12-8, Dudley had marched from its own 5-yard line to deep into Ragsdale territory. On fourth-and-10 on the 20, Panthers quarterback Alex Moore rolled to his left looking to run, but was hit solidly and brought down by linebacker Trey Grimes, a sophomore in the game due to an injury to Robert Pompey.

“I was just reading by assignments,” Grimes said. “We were just playing team ball. I just wanted to come in and do what I could.”

Later in the fourth quarter, the Panthers had fourth and goal inside the 1. Moore tried to sneak it in over the top of the pile, but Grimes, Daniel McNeil, Walt Sparks and Billy Stone were all there to meet him and stopped him short.

“The key is that we’ve got a lot of seniors who have been there before,” said Ragsdale coach Tommy Norwood. “It’s a good win, but it’s nice to see us improve against a quality team. I’ll be honest, coming into this game, I didn’t know where we were with this team.”

After a scoreless first quarter, the Panthers got on the board early in the second. Dudley started on its own 39 and used Mycah Gaylord and quarterback Alex Moore. The Panthers also benefitted from a pass interference call on third down against Ragsdale.

Gaylord picked up 14 yards on fourth and one, and the Panthers were in striking distance at the 11. But a bad snap backed them up and they faced a third and 15, but Moore went to the air and found Jeremy Reynolds in the back, right corner and he hung on with two defenders bringing him down. J.R Peterson ran in the two-point conversion for a 8-0 lead.

Ragsdale bounced right back when Tigers quarterback Luke Heavner hit Desean Anderson in stride on the sideline for a 73-yard scoring play. The run for two-points was short and the Tigers trailed 8-6 with 10:14 to play.

It was the second week in a row that the Panthers had given up a long pass play.

“It was a very big concern,” said Dudley coach Steven Davis. “We knew number 15 (Anderson) was good. We thought if we could contain him, we would be all right, but obviously that wasn’t the case.”

After Ragsdale held Dudley to a three-and-out, they hit another big pass play, this time a 46-yarder from Heavner to Luke Sonricker. A 12-yard pass to Anderson on third-and-10 kept the drive alive.

D’onovan Smith ran straight up the middle from 13 yards out to give the Tigers the lead. The two-point conversion failed again making the score 12-8 and that would be all the scoring for the first half.

Ragsdale put the game away with a long drive late in the fourth quarter. Starting at their own 17, the Tigers handed to Smith again and again to move the ball down the field. After six straight running plays, Heavner hit Sonricker again on a little stop and go for a 37-yard touchdown and a 18-8 lead with 2:08 to play.

D - Jeremy Reynolds 16 pass from Alex Moore (J.R. Peterson run)

R - Desean Anderson 73 pass from Luke Heavner (run fail)

R - D'onovan Smith 13 run (pass fail)

R - Luke Sonricker 37 pass from Heavner (run fail)