Becky Taylor/The Tifton Gazette Langston Hughes is fooled on a fake and Damieon Dixon scores a touchdown with ease for Tift County in its spring game.

TIFTON — Five months ago, Langston Hughes made a big impact in the Class 5A football championship game. They fell to Milton, but played close against a team stacked like an SEC school.

Thursday, May 15, they again met their match, this time against the Tift County Blue Devils. The 21-14 score in the spring game was the three varsity quarters of a scrimmage, but more than enough to make jaws drop and head coach Jeff Littleton happy about their progress.

“I thought we did a lot of good things,” said Littleton. “Execution was good on both sides of the ball.”

There were a few mental errors, he admitted, but attributed some to being a young team. “We had some first-time players,” Littleton said. He said he was proud of where the Blue Devils are and proud of how far they’ve come.

“We want to continue to get better,” he said.

The Devils will have a summer ahead of them to work on that, and a little more than two months before they will have an official game.

Tift was 2-8 a season ago, but managed to a put a scare into every Region 1-6A opponent it faced. The backfield, virtually the same of that of 2024, had three different individuals score touchdowns.

Damieon Dixon went in from three yards out to start scoring. Kamari Holloman twisted his way in for a 15-yard touchdown to make it 14-0. And in the third quarter, Dixon threw a 12-yard scoring pass on third down.

That the Blue Devils would be able to hold their own was apparent on the second snap of the game. The offensive line got behind Holloman to give him a massive push, resulting in an 11-yard gain.

Holloman did more of the toting on the initial drive, with with two big catches by receivers to move the sticks. Eleven plays in, Dixon found a gap and made his way to paydirt at 4:54.

David Olguin provided the first of his three kicks for  a 7-0 lead.

The contest was not all Tift offense, however.

The second snap of the day for the Panthers saw Jack Medina punch out a football and the Blue Devils take over at the 15.

“The coaches did a good job preparing,” Littleton said,” and the players did a good job executing plays called.”

Holloman needed only one try to bull his way through defenders and score again at 4:06. Littleton agrees Holloman is going to be very difficult to tackle this season.

The Panthers responded with a touchdown at the start of the second period, cutting the lead to 14-7. That was it for their half. Tift advances, combined with the extra impediment of all kickoffs a punts starting points being the 25, cut down on drives.

Bryce Robinson recovered a Langston Hughes fumble to start the third. Dixon ran for one first down, then converted a third down with a pass in the end zone.

Langston Hughes scored a second touchdown on the last possession of the night for varsity.

The Panthers had the sole JV touchdown, scored late in the fourth quarter.