By ANTHONY RICHARDS | Staff Writer

JEMISON – The Montevallo Bulldogs ended up on the right end of a shootout with the Jemison Panthers on Friday, Sept. 14, going on the road and picking up a 64-41 victory to improve to 4-0 on the season.

Both defenses were challenged from the start, as both offenses lit up the scoreboard.

Montevallo scored the first three touchdowns of the contest with a pair of touchdown runs and a 64-yard scoring strike from Malik Inabinette to J.J. Evans.

However, the Panthers clawed their way back into the game following some nice kickoff returns by Jahvon Simon and A.J. Jackson.

Daniel Martin kept an option play around the right end, broke a tackle and it was smooth sailing on his way to end zone for a 37-yard touchdown run for Jemison’s first points of the night.

Despite struggles at times for the Panthers’ defense, there were also several positive plays to build on moving forward.

Jemison’s Jonathan Lowery pushed a Montevallo offensive tackle into the backfield and deflected a pass that fell into the arms of senior Deonte Williams for an interception with 5:40 left in the second quarter.

Two plays later, Jackson found the end zone with an 18-yard run to make it a single-possession affair and cut the Montevallo lead to 21-14.

Each team had their share of big plays, but it was the Bulldogs that found the most of their success on short drives, which proved to be a deciding factor in the outcome.

Martin hit a wide open Davison streaking down the middle of the field behind the Montevallo secondary for a 32-yard touchdown pass. Davison added the extra point and Jemison trailed 29-21 at the halftime break.

It was just more of the same in the second half, as the offenses moved the ball, but in the end it was the Bulldogs that moved it a little more effectively.

Montevallo posted 700 yards of offense and was led on offense as usual by Inabinette and Evans. Inabinette ended the night 16-of-32 for 420 yards and four touchdowns, while Evans was on the receiving end of 200 of those 420 yards.

Jemari Harris also had four catches for 77 yards.

On the ground, Deon Gilliland racked up 197 yards and three touchdowns on just 19 touches.

Defensively, Tavicia Tutt posted nine tackles and DonAnglo Evans had eight.

The Bulldogs will now return home on Sept. 21 to take on possibly their toughest challenger of the season in 3-0 American Christian who has yet to give up a point through three games this season.