Patterson High alum Phillips earns All-American honor

On the heels of claiming the school’s third NJCAA football championship in four years, four members of East Mississippi Community College’s national title team have received 2014 NJCAA All-American honors, the NJCAA national office announced Tuesday.
This year’s quartet of NJCAA All-Americans for head coach Buddy Stephens’ unbeaten EMCC Lions consist of first-team quarterback Chad Kelly, first-team defensive standouts, Patterson High alum Lorenzo Phillips, and Demetrius Cain, and second-team offensive lineman Jamal Danley.
All four EMCC players previously earned 2014 NJCAA All-Region 23 accolades and were tabbed Mississippi Association of Community & Junior Colleges North Division Most Valuable Players at their respective positions.
Kelly’s first-team selection extends East Mississippi Community College’s current streak to seven consecutive years that the Lions have featured an NJCAA All-American quarterback. The 6-foot-3, 220-pound sophomore signal-caller follows in the footsteps of Dontreal Pruitt (now at Troy University), Quez Johnson (Florida Atlantic), Bo Wallace (Ole Miss), Brad Henderson (Northwestern (La.) State), and two-time honoree Randall Mackey (Ole Miss).
Kelly, a Buffalo, New York native, tied for the NJCAA lead with 47 touchdowns thrown and ranked second nationally in pass completion percentage (66.9).
This season the Clemson University transfer completed 303-of-453 passes for 3,906 yards and had only eight interceptions in his lone season at EMCC.
After Kelly completed 40-of-53 passes for 434 yards and five touchdowns in EMCC’s victory against Iowa Western Community College in the NJCAA Football Championship Game/Mississippi Bowl VII, he was tabbed the 2014 Player of the Year by the Mississippi Bowl Committee
Danley, a 6-foot-5, 315-pound offensive lineman out of Byhalia High School in Byhalia, Mississippi, has been a two-year mainstay on EMCC’s offensive line that paved the way for the 2014 Lions to average 53.8 points (fourth in NJCAA) and 537.1 yards of total offense (fifth in NJCAA) per contest.
The Lions’ 91 total touchdowns this season stood second nationally among the NJCAA ranks behind only Trinity Valley Community College, who had 95 touchdowns.
Defensively, EMCC’s Phillips and Cain headlined the NJCAA’s stingiest stopper unit throughout the 2014 campaign. Along with leading the nation in scoring defense by allowing just 7.6 points per game, the Lion defenders collectively ranked third nationally with 58 sacks and 21 interceptions.
While not surrendering a rushing touchdown throughout the nine-game regular season, East Mississippi held the opposition scoreless in 35 of the team’s 48 quarters this season, including a string of 23 consecutive scoreless quarters, which comprised five straight shutouts.
Phillips, a 6-foot-3, 230-pound sophomore transfer from LSU by way of Patterson High School, ranked fourth among NJCAA pass-rushers with 14 sacks for 80 yards lost.
Along with being credited with 46 total tackles this season, including 18.5 total stops behind the line of scrimmage, Phillips had two fumble recoveries for touchdowns and also caused two fumbles.
Also with a pair of touchdowns this year coming on pick-six pass interceptions, the 6-foot-1, 215-pound Cain tied for 13th nationally with five picks for 168 return yards and the two scores from his linebacker spot. The product of Hazlehurst High School in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, Cain ranked as EMCC’s third-leading tackler this season with 55 total stops (48 solo tackles and seven assists), including six tackles behind the line of scrimmage.
Including this season’s four-member contingent and last year’s school-record six recipients, EMCC now has garnered 23 NJCAA All-Americans in football dating back to the 2008 season.
During that same seven-year span, Stephens’ EMCC Lions have posted a 68-10 (.872) record with ongoing back-to-back national championships and another in 2011, along with four MACJC State/NJCAA Region 23 Championships (2014, 2013, 2011 and 2009) and six MACJC North Division regular-season titles (2014, ‘13, ‘12, ‘11, ‘09 and ‘08).