The 6-5, 220 senior signal caller missed some games with a high ankle sprain and the Wildcats suffered without him.

In the 34-22 win against West Frankfort on the road, Denny ran for 154-yards on 25-carries and scored four touchdowns, mostly on runs up the middle of the field breaking a lot of tackles along the way.

The only pass he attempted went for a successful two-point conversion in the first quarter and his teammates on defense kept the Redbirds from mounting a comeback ass Anna-Jonesboro picked up a needed win in a battle of two teams who will miss the playoffs this season.

Coach Brett Detering, who is retiring at the end of the campaign, and his team are now 3-5 overall and they finished 2-3 in the Mississippi Division.

Next Friday's home game against Carterville will wrap up the 27-year coaching tenure for Detering.

Denny got some help on the ground by senior running back/linebacker Tyler Cunningham who ended up with 14-attempts for 81-yards and the fifth touchdown for A-J.

Senior Evan Hall helped with eight-rushes for 34-yards as the team finished with 269-yards on the ground.

“Our kids have played together for a long time, they're a tight-nit group. They work for each other and cheer for each other,” said Coach Detering. “I know getting Payton (Denny) back was a shot in the arm for us. He goes out there and gives you everything he's got and he's hard to bring down. He doesn't look as powerful as he really is but he is a tough runner.”

The top player for West Frankfort was Brady Melvin, a senior running back/quarterback/kick returner who ended up with 141-yards on just 13-tries and scored the game's final points on a 96-yard kick return for a touchdown.

Speedster Travion Johnson, a 5-11, 150 junior running back, added to the ground attack for West Frankfort with 87-yards.

Melvin completed just 1-of-6 passes for 17-yards as most of the total plays in the contest by both teams were rushes.

Coach Brian Beery's Redbirds fell to 3-6 on the season and ended up 1-4 in the Mississippi Division.

“Both he (Johnson) and Melvin are just hard runners and are tough to bring down,” said Coach Detering. “You try to keep them from having some big plays and our kids hung in there and made enough plays on defense. We got couple of stops on fourth down situations that we needed.”

Anna-Jonesboro ran 52-plays to 34 by West Frankfort, 18 of which came on the opening drive of the game.

The Wildcats marched 64-yards with Denny picking up a key first down on a fourth-and-one in WF territory.

Behind Cunningham, who netted 25-yards in the first drive, Anna-Jonesboro scored on Denny's first TD run from eight-yards out.

His two-point conversion pass to Hall made it 8-0 with 4:41 left in the opening quarter.

Not to be overlooked in the win was the defensive effort by the Wildcats.

A-J stopped the first West Frankfort drive when senior lineman Drew Holshouser scooped up a fumble and rambled down the sideline to the Redbirds 45.

That possession by the Wildcats would finish off the first quarter and roll into the second as the offense burned almost six minutes off of the clock on a 10-play drive that ended with Denny going 15-yards up the middle and then cutting out to the left as he raced past defenders into the endzone for his second TD.

Although the Wildcats were stopped short on the two-point conversion try, A-J led 14-0.

(CONTINUED)

West Frankfort scored its only first half points on its next possession with Melvin completing his only pass to teammate Keagan Bowers during its 77-yard march.

(CONTINUED)

The most exciting play for West Frankfort came on the next kickoff as Melvin took the kick just inside his own five-yard line and ran up the right sideline.

He then broke through some A-J defenders, cut back to the middle of the field and sprinted to the house.

His 96-yard return for a TD was followed by a pass to junior running back Eric Duncan to close the scoring with 2:06 left.

Frazier made a big play with his hands on the West Frankfort kickoff as he caught a pooch kick for a fair catch as A-J took over at its 40-yard line.

The Wildcats ran out the clock with three runs by Denny that picked up a final first down of the game and got Coach Detering his 174th win of his 27-yard run at the school.

“Anytime you walk off of the field with a win, it's a great feeling for your team and your kids,” said Coach Detering.

Although the Wildcats won't be making the playoffs this season, the success of the program under Coach Detering should not go unmentioned.

In his 27-years, Anna-Jonesboro made 18 playoff appearances with a 23-18 record.

Only four of those seasons did the Wildcats fail to make it past the first round.

A-J made two semifinal appearances in 2006 and 2017.

“There will be emotions to it, the finality of it. But like I told these guys before, I look so forward to going to practice every day with these kids because they're such a great group,” said Coach Detering about his final week before retiring from coaching. “I know how they're going to play and the heart that they have and how they prepare. It's going to be another week around a group of kids that I enjoy being with. It will be disappointing when the season ends, as it always is because they're careers are over and they have put a lot of time in. There will be some other emotions but that just goes with it. I have the benefit of knowing when the last game is.”

West Frankfort will finish their season with a home game against Hamilton County in a game created by the two schools on an open date that happened because of Vienna/Goreville and Sparta not being able to field varsity teams this fall.

The Foxes are 4-4 and need a win to become playoff eligible while the Redbirds can play spoilers next Friday.