Scott Parrott threw his first interception of the season Friday night, but the junior quarterback more than made up for it by tossing five touchdown passes as Soddy-Daisy beat stubborn Bradley Central 35-21.

Parrott, who had thrown 55 passes and had completed 42, threw his interception on the second play of the game.

“I got greedy again. Their safeties had been playing very aggressively, and rather than ease into it we went for the big play,” said Trojans coach E.K. Slaughter, whose team is 3-1 overall and 2-0 in Region 2-5A.

Parrott completed 20 of 25 passes for 215 yards and threw three touchdown passes to Bubba Haney and two to Donovan Barnes. Parrott has 13 TD passes this season and a 77.5 percent completion rate.

Staff Photo by D. Patrick Harding
Bradley Central's Blake Ramage (87) picks up yardage after he recovers a fumble in the first quarter before he is tackled by Soddy Daisy's Craig Smith (5).

“In the first quarter they were showing stuff we hadn’t seen, and it took a while to adjust,” he said. “The interception had to come eventually. I just made a bad decision. But Coach Slaughter made some great adjustments; the sacks I took tonight were my fault. The receivers and the O-line have been doing a great job.”

Haney had eight catches for 115 yards and Barnes caught seven balls for 66 yards. Running back P.J. Hubbard finished with 22 carries for 100 yards.

“We killed ourselves with turnovers and penalties,” said Bradley coach Damon Floyd, whose team dropped to 1-3 and 0-2 in region play. “We were trying to keep all the passes underneath, and (Parrott) took what we gave him and then took some more.”

It wasn’t a stroll in the park for the Trojans, who spent the first three weeks on the road. Bradley rushed 38 times for 235 yards, leaning heavily on the Lindsey cousins, running back Deonte and quarterback Courtney.

Deonte scored all three of the Bears’ touchdowns on runs of 54 and 37 yards and a 50-yard punt return.

“I have so much respect for what Damon has done with that team. He has turned them around in the last two weeks and made them a team that is going to give a lot of teams fits down the road,” Slaughter said. “And the Lindseys — gosh, they’re scary. They have a chance to score every time they touch the ball. When we’re up two (touchdowns) with five minutes to go, you’d like to feel good about your chances and cannot because of them.”

Soddy-Daisy, which allowed Deonte Lindsey to run for 96 yards on six carries, clamped down on the pair in the second half after allowing the punt-return TD.

Soddy-Daisy took a 14-7 lead with 4:58 to play in the first half on a pass from Parrott to Barnes and then got a huge break when Andrew Jenkins intercepted a Courtney Lindsey pass. From Bradley’s perspective, Jenkins got stripped trying to advance the ball, but the officials awarded possession to the Trojans at Bradley’s 31.

Before Soddy-Daisy could make a snap, Bradley had been hit with two unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties — one on the sideline and one on the field — which advanced the ball to the Bradley 8. Parrott capitalized with an 8-yard TD pass to Haney.

“I asked them if they’d like to have a copy of the tape, and they asked me if I’d like another penalty,” Floyd said.