MONTICELLO – There is no stopping Lawrence County senior runningback Wayne Hardy Friday night. Hardy scored four touchdowns andcarried the football just six times for 178 yards in LawrenceCounty’s lopsided 62-28 Region 6-4A win over the TerryBulldawgs.

Hardy scored touchdowns on runs of 7, 30, 76 and 31 yards. Inthe last three games, he has rushed for 450 yards.

For his accomplishments, Hardy has been named The Daily Leader’sOffensive Player of the Week for the eighth week of the 2001football season.

Just recently, Hardy verbally committed to sign with theSouthern Miss Golden Eagles of Conference USA. He is projected as atailback.

“When they (USM coaches) saw him running the football, theywere impressed,” said Lawrence County head coach Trent Hammond ofHardy. “He’s a big kid, 6-foot-1 and 217 pounds. He’s a skinny kidwho can fly. The first guy (tackler) has yet to get him down thisyear. It usually takes two or three to bring him down. They willput some weight on him when he gets to USM.”

Hardy say liked Southern Miss and the opportunity to play aposition he would like, tailback. “They will give me a pretty goodchance to play tailback,” said Hardy. Other major collegesinterested in Hardy were Auburn, LSU and Tennessee State.

Academically, Hardy scored an 18 on his ACT and maintains a3.4 grade point average.

This isn’t the first Player of the Week honor this year forHardy. The week of Sept. 19, Hardy was named Offensive Player ofthe Week in a 55-34 win over Magee. Against Magee, he scored fourTDs on runs of 1, 31, 42 and 65 yards. On defense, he playslinebacker.

“It’s great,” said Hardy about being named Player of theWeek for the second time this season.

“We didn’t let him touch it (football) very much,” saidHammond. “Four touchdowns on six carries for 178 yards. That’spretty awesome.”

Hardy and his Cougar teammates kept their cool in thehomecoming win over Terry last Friday. The Bulldawgs used constanttrash talking and hard-hits to highlight an ugly game.

“It was good because they were trying to beat us upphysically and we won the game,” smiled Hardy. “They trash talkedthe whole game.”

Hardy is a gifted athlete. He runs a 40 in 4.5. In theweight room, he bench presses 300 pounds and squats 520.

Without the help of a talented offensive line, Hardy andother Cougar runningbacks and quarterbacks would getnowhere.

“The whole offensive line has played great,” Hardy said.”They open all the holes for us backs.” His offensive linemeninclude center Phillip Campbell, strong guard Corey Rogers, strongtackle Corey Williams, weak tackle Rodney Kees, tight ends LukeThomas and Anthony Evans and guard Jonathan Smith.

Hardy takes advantage of those holes to score most of histouchdown coming on off tackle-leads. In the backfield, Hardy hashelp from backs Jonathan Eley and Jason Snell. Quarterback lastweek was sophomore Casey Williams.

“A lot of the credit goes to the offensive line for knowingtheir assignments and executing their assignments,” addedHammond.

For their region game with Raymond Friday night, Hardy wouldlike to see his defense get better. “Our defense will have to getbetter his week. We haven’t had a letdown with our linebackers.We’ve played at a good, consistent level.”

Hardy is pleased to be in the thick of things in the regionrace. “We have come a long way since we have started,” Hardy said.”We’ve had very little injuries. We are concentrating on being inthe number one spot.”

The Cougars are 7-1 overall and 3-1 in the region race, tiedfor second place with McComb (5-3, 3-1). South Pike (7-1, 4-0)leads the region and Brookhaven (5-3, 3-2) is fourth.

When football season is over, Hardy will be running trackagain. Last year, he ran the 100 meter dash with a 10.9 time andthe 110 meter hurdles finishing with a 15.1.

In his spare time, Hardy says he likes to dragrace.

Hardy likes to followed the Tennessee Titans in the NFL andEddie George is his favorite player.

The support he gets from his parents is important to Hardy.”My parents have encouraged me in sports and in academics,” addedHardy. They keep me going.”

Likewise, he and his teammates are encouraging each other.”The team is keeping each other up.”