It’s been a rough few weeks for the Meridian football team, and Friday night didn’t provide much of a breather.

After back-to-back losses on the road to Picayune and South Panola, Meridian returned home to host Starkville Friday night — and the Yellowjackets proved too much for the Wildcats, as they took a 47-0 halftime lead en route to a 57-0 win.

The Wildcats (1-4) finished with negative 33 yards rushing and 47 yards passing, going 7 of 16 in the air with one interception. Starkville, meanwhile, tallied 136 yards on the ground and 211 yards through the air, often benefitting from good field position, which kept its total number of offensive plays down.

“They’re probably getting tired of hearing it, but there’s nothing we can do except continue to come and try to go to work and try to fix it and make it as good as we can and improve as much as we can and become the best football team that we can,” Wildcats head coach John Douglass said. 

“I’d like to be able to tell them something else. We have a ways to go. We’re young, but we’re just not playing very good football right now. We’re not consistent in anything, really. We just have to keep going and trying to improve. We’re taking some on the chin right now, but it is what it is. We have to continue to work.”

Starkville scored two touchdowns in the first quarter, one on its opening drive when quarterback Luke Altmyer hit Joshua Aka for a 42-yard touchdown pass and another on a 4-yard run by Amariyon Howard. Peyton Rodgers also hit a 24-yard field goal, and the Yellowjackets got a safety as well to take a 19-0 lead after one.

The Yellowjackets scored early in the second quarter when Justice Robinson picked up a fumble on the Meridian 1 and ran it in for a touchdown following a botched punt by the Wildcats. Starkville had two more rushing touchdowns, one on a Jordan Mitchell 7-yard run and another on a 7-yard carry by Howard. Right before the half, backup quarterback NyJal Johnson found Leroy Hollingshed for a 14-yard touchdown pass to make it 47-0 at intermission.

With a running clock in the second half, Starkville scored twice more when Rodgers hit a 42-yard field goal in the third quarter and the Yellowjackets found the end zone on a 28-yard touchdown pass.

“I thought we did a decent job,” Starkville head coach Chris Jones said. “The score was 57-0, but that’s a small picture as far as the big picture of what we’re trying to do, which is get better at every position and taking advantage of every possession. We have a lot of work to do. We’re starting district play next week, so we just want to make sure we’re hitting on all cylinders. I’m happy about the win, but I’m not satisfied. Hopefully, we’ll have a good week of practice and get ready for South Panola.”

Meridian (1-4) will host Northwest Rankin next week to begin MHSAA Region 3-6A play, while Starkville (3-2) hosts South Panola to begin its Region 2-6A portion of the schedule.