RISON - The Rison Wildcats took their first lead with 1:56 left only to see the Class 4A Monti‐cello Billie mount a late come‐back and score with 26 seconds left to come away with a 20-19 victory Tuesday night in a scrimmage matchup at George Walker Field of Champions.
Rison played without starting junior quarterback Owen Morri‐son, who will miss the start of the 2022 season after discover‐ing an existing injury that is still healing during a recent medical exam.
Wildcat Coach Clay Totty said Morrison will be re-evaluated in a month to see if he will be cleared to play.
Morrison learned of his status late last week, forcing back-up senior quarterback Blaine Dixon to unexpectedly take the staring job. Dixon took all the snaps be‐hind center in Tuesday’s scrim‐mage.
Totty said it was Dixon’s first time to play quarterback since the 7th grade. Dixon usually plays receiver on offense and linebacker on defens.
As would be expected, it took Dixon some time to settle into his new role. After missing his first three pass attempts, he hit ZaKyler Walker for a 16-yard gain for what turned out to be his only completion. He was 1-of-8 passes with two interceptions, but both of those picks came in situations of the closing seconds of the first and second halves.
Totty said he felt Dixon did a good job under center consider‐ing he was thrust into the start‐ing role without much notice. He noted that Dixon himself had been out for two weeks letting an Achilles heal.
“He’s kind of hard on him‐self,” Totty said of Dixon after the game. “He just needs to re‐lax.”
The game was the tale of two halves with Monticello’s aerial attack dominating the first half and Rison’s running game con‐trolling the second.
On the Billies’ first offensive snap, Jeremiah Daniels swept past the Rison defenders to go 55 yards to the Rison 25. Four plays later, quarterback B...
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