For its first two offensive drives Friday night, the Jones County High football team (2-8) appeared poised to end a disappointing season on a good note against Forest Park (1-8-1).

But a couple of adjustments and a higher intensity level propelled the Panthers to a 12-3 win over the Greyhounds in a match-up of the last-place teams in both of region 4-AAAA’s sub-regions.

The contest started off with Jones receiving the opening kickoff, which Andre Pope took to the Greyhound 42-yard line.

Two plays later quarterback Dusty Lanford ran for 30 yards to the Panther 22, and on a fourth-and-three three plays later, Jones County High head coach Bill Young elected to kick a field goal.

Michael Sibley’s 31-yard boot put the home team up 3-0 just 3:15 into the game.

After a three-and-out by the visitors on the ensuing drive, the ’Hounds marched down the field once again.

Lanford broke off another big run, going 47 yards to the Forest Park 18-yard line on the second play of the drive.

Three plays later the quarterback advanced to the Panther 5, converting a fourth-and-short.

But two incomplete passes, a 2-yard run by Lanford, and a couple of illegal procedure penalties pushed the line of scrimmage back to the 13-yard line, and Sibley missed a 30-yard field goal with 2:09 to play in the first quarter.

The Greyhounds offense saw no such success moving the ball for the game’s 38 remaining minutes. This was due in large part to a couple of key decisions by the Forest Park defensive coaching staff, according to Young.

“They started a lot of stunting inside, and we didn’t do a good job of picking it up,” Young said. “That takes away any inside running back when you can’t get a body on those defenders who are stunting.”

Young said the Panthers also moved to man coverage on the outside, and the Greyhounds could not take advantage in the passing game, as quarterbacks Lanford and Jake Robertson combined to go 2-for-9 for just 26 yards in the game.

The ’Hounds mustered only 35 yards of total offense after Sibley’s miss late in the first quarter.

The Panthers came to life after the Sibley miss. On the ensuing possession, they drove 79 yards on 15 plays before being stuffed on fourth-and-goal at the Jones 1-yard line.

Jones went three plays and out, however, and Forest Park did the same on its next drive, but Devon Pace muffed a Panther punt, giving the ball back to the visitors at the Jones 38-yard line.

Six plays later a 42-yard field goal knotted the score at 3-3.

Forest Park then recovered a squib kick on the ensuing kickoff and reached the Greyhound 23 before having some kicking misfortune of its own from 40 yards out.

Both teams went into their respective locker rooms with three points on the scoreboard, and neither team would put up any more points until the start of the fourth quarter.

On the first series of that final period, Panther quarterback ran for 19 yards for a third-down conversion and later passed for an 11-yard gain to convert another third down.

A 16-yard pass on the next play, the team’s ninth of the drive, resulted in the only touchdown of the game with 9:03 left in the fourth, but a missed extra point kept the score at 9-3 and left Greyhounds with plenty of hope to still pull out a win.

Jones’ next series fizzled out after six plays, but Sibley punted the Panthers inside their own 10.

Chase Lundy hit running back James Johnson for a 2-yard loss to the 7-yard line on the first play for Forest Park, and the next play would be what Young called the turning point of the contest.

After Lewis fumbled the shotgun snap and retreated into the end zone to pick it up, at least two Greyhound defenders had a shot at dropping the quarterback for a safety. But Lewis broke a couple of tackles behind the goal line and a couple more up the field, as he advanced 53 yards to the Jones 40 before being brought down.

“We had them down deep in their own territory, and we’re thinking about getting a stop and getting good field position. All of a sudden you’ve got some missed tackles, and next thing you know they’re down at the other end of the field,” Young said.

That drive, which began with just over six minutes to play in the game, would subsist 11 more plays before a 28-yard field goal iced the win for the Panthers with 23.5 seconds left.

The win ignited a celebration on the visitors’ sideline that released the frustration of a 24-game stretch that the team had suffered without posting a notch in the win column.

A 12-12 tie with Mundy’s Mill Sept. 15 was the closest Forest Park had been to a win on the gridiron in two-and-a-half seasons before Friday night.

The desire to end that negative streak may have been the emotional edge that propelled the Panthers to victory in the contest. For the ’Hounds, the game had no postseason implications in a week during which four of their region foes were playing for a shot at the state playoffs.

Young said that he thinks that such meaninglessness of a game from a playoff perspective does detract some from a team’s focus.

“But once you get into the game, it’s still a game,” he said.