Shane Thomas | The Valdosta Daily TimesLowndes 1st Grade County All-Stars player Christian Parker (59) runs the ball during a Junior Winnersville Classic game Tuesday at Bazemore-Hyder Stadium.

VALDOSTA ––  Day 1 of the 2019 Junior Winnersville Classic started with a bang Tuesday.

The Kindergarten, 1st Grade and 3rd Grade All-Star teams from Lowndes County and Valdosta City battled it out at Bazemore-Hyder Stadium with many future Valdosta Wildcats and Lowndes Vikings putting on a show for the crowd.

3rd Grade Game

In the 3rd Grade game, Valdosta’s Anthony Johnson dominated the competition –– scoring three touchdowns to lead Valdosta to a 25-6 win against Lowndes.

Johnson opened the scoring with a long touchdown run to put Valdosta up 6-0 with 8:14 left in the first quarter, then added another with 4:41 left in the second quarter that gave his team a 12-0 lead.

Lowndes got on the board with a scoring play from Shawn Williams to cut the Valdosta lead to 12-6 with 23.7 seconds left in the half.

The third quarter saw neither team find the end zone as the score remained the same heading into the fourth.

Johnson established himself as the player of the game with his third touchdown with 7:38 left in the game that gave Valdosta an 18-6 lead. Valdosta put the game away for good with 2:18 left in the game as Karson Griswold recovered a Lowndes fumble and went all the way to score.

1st Grade Game

Despite a power outage at the stadium that delayed play for nearly 20 minutes, play was not suspended as Valdosta took a 7-0 lead on a Gavin Demps touchdown with 4:24 left in the second quarter.

Following the delay, Lowndes responded as Christian Parker busted out a long touchdown run to tie the game at 7 with 12 seconds left in the third quarter.

Parker scored the winning touchdown for Lowndes with 11.8 seconds to go as Lowndes took the 1st Grade matchup against Valdosta 14-7.

Kindergarten Game

The night began with a thrilling, competitive matchup between Valdosta and Lowndes’ Kindergarten All-Star teams.

Valdosta’s Brayden Rice gave his team the lead early on a long touchdown run to make it 6-0 Valdosta with 5:44 left in the first quarter.

Lowndes didn’t waste time coming back as Hahira’s William Loveday tied the game with 3 minutes left in the opening quarter. Lowndes moved in front 12-6 with another Loveday touchdown with 57.2 seconds left in the half.

Rice scored to tie the game at 12 as time expired on the first half.

Valdosta struck first in the second half as Kewame Smith ran the ball in to go up 18-12 late in the third quarter.

However, perhaps the play of the game came from the Lowndes All-Stars. On a second-down play, Massiah Brown got the ball on a flea-flicker and fired downfield to James WIlliam Nelson for a long touchdown connection. The play, coupled with an extra point, put Lowndes in front 19-18 with 5:48 to go in the game and stunned everyone in attendance with its creativity.

Smith gave Valdosta the lead back for good with 3:20 left as Valdosta made key defensive stops down the stretch to preserve a 24-19 victory.

UP NEXT

On Thursday, the 2nd Grade All-Stars will face off at 6 p.m. while the 4th and 5th Grade All-Stars will cap the event at 7 p.m.

Admission is free and VLPRA encourages everyone to attend and support the future Wildcats and Vikings in the game.