Sports

Tigers open football season with victory

Hardin County opened their 2010 football schedule with a 19-6 victory against Chester County last Friday night. The Tigers opened up a 13-0 lead by halftime and extended their lead to 19-0 before Chester County scored their lone touchdown in the final quarter of play.

The key stretch of the game happened just before halftime. Hardin County fumbled the ball to the Eagles at the Chester County 6-yard line with just 1:50 left on the clock. The Eagles had to make a decision of whether they would try to run the clock out to halftime or take a chance on moving the ball down field.

Chester County chose the latter. After picking up a first down on their second play to move the ball to their own 21-yard line, the Eagles couldn’t move the ball any further. To make matters worse, they stopped the clock with a timeout and two incomplete passes to give the Tigers one final chance with 21 seconds remaining in the second quarter.

Hardin County quickly made the Eagles pay for their decision to challenge the Tiger defense. Quarterback Barker Burnham completed a 30-yard pass play to Coty Eanes on their first play from scrimmage to give them the ball on the 6-yard line. On the next play, Burnham found J.D. Clausel open in the end zone for a touchdown with just 7.9 seconds remaining on the clock. Eddie Espinoza came on to convert the extra-point to give the Tigers a 13-0 lead at halftime.

“That was definitely a big moment in the game. They gave us an opportunity to do something offensively, and we were able to get some points,” said Tiger head coach William McAdams. Steven Rich scored the first touchdown of the season for the Tigers with a 4-yard run in the opening quarter. Rich added a 1-yard touchdown run in the third quarter to finish Hardin County’s scoring in he game.

McAdams was especially pleased with the way the defense played in their opening game of the season. The Hardin County defense held Chester County to 151 total yards from scrimmage. “We really had a good night defensively. We were also able to move the ball on offense, but penalties really set us back several times in the game. If we can cut down on those mistakes, then we’ve got a chance to be a good football team,” said the Tiger head coach.

Daniel Avila led the Tigers in rushing with 81 yards on 14 carries. Burnham completed 11-of-17 passes for 182 yards. Eanes had five catches for 102 yards. Clausel had three receptions for a total of 47 yards. Rich was the leading tackler for the Tiger defense with 18 total stops. Josh Ivey was second with nine total tackles. Dakotah McFerson had eight tackles. Avila helped out with seven tackles for the Tiger defense.

The Tigers will host Munford in their first home game of the season this Friday night. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. Munford has started the season with a pair of victories. The Cougars defeated Fayette Ware by a score of 35-0 in Week 0 and then picked up a 27-12 victory over Covington last week.

McAdams stated that there are a lot of similarities between Munford and Hardin County. He is also hopeful that his team will do a better job of executing than they did in their season opener. “They remind me a lot of us on both sides of the ball. They are very multiple on both sides. It’s really going to come down to who executes the best on Friday night,” said McAdams.

Munford finished last year with an overall record of only 3-7. However, they were the only team in the district to defeat Brighton last year. Hardin County has defeated Munford in each of the last two years, including a 21-12 victory last year.

Cardinal football team bucked by Kossuth

The Adamsville football team crossed the state line on Friday night for a matchup with the Kossuth Aggies. The Aggies won the battle against Adamsville by a final score of 31-22.

The Cardinals got plenty of offense in the game, but they had trouble stopping the Kossuth offense. The Aggies posted 31 points in the game and also had a total of 371 yards of total offense. Kossuth did most of their damage on the ground with 256 rushing yards in the game.

Cardinal head coach saw some positives in the loss but is hopeful to make improvements in practice this week.”Our kids played well, they just gave up some big plays on third downs. It seemed like every time they scored it was after a third and long or a fourth. We need some leadership. But our kids never quit. They were still trying to score down to the last second,” he said.

Quarterback Bradley Melton had three touchdown passes in the game. Melton had touchdowns of 20, 14, and 6 yards. Josh Shoate caught a pair of touchdown passes for the Cardinals. Stephen Jackson also had a 20-yard touchdown reception for Adamsville in the game against Kossuth. Dustin Plunk added a PAT for the Cardinals.

Melton had a total of 156 passing yards as he completed 13-of-27 pass attempts. Shoate had 102 yards receiving on seven catches. Jackson had a total of 45 yards receiving with three catches. Jamel Sanders rushed for 101 yards on just 12 carries in the game for the Cardinals. John Blakely led the Cardinals on defense with 10 total tackles. Blake Edwards and Kameron McDaniel each had nine total stops in the game.

The Cardinals will face Riverside in their first district game of the season on Friday night. Riverside opened the season with a 21-14 victory against Lexington in their opening game last week. The Panthers were ranked eighth in the Class 2A state poll by the Associated Press earlier in the week.

In last week’s victory against Lexington, Riverside was led by running back Brice White. White had 121 rushing yards on 17 carries, including a pair of touchdown runs. Panther quarterback Jebb Jones completed 5-of-10 passes for 67 yards in the victory against Lexington.

Gray knows this is an important game for the team. He was concerned about the health of his team after seven starters were out of practice on Monday due to injury or sickness. “This is our biggest game of the year so far. We’ve got to get better on defense and continue to execute on offense,” he said.