East Hamilton’s defense didn’t stop Soddy-Daisy quarterback Hunter Maynor on Friday.
But nothing came easy for the senior gunslinger.
Sure, Maynor threw for 223 yards and two touchdowns, but by applying constant pressure to Maynor, the Hurricanes hurried and harassed him into three interceptions, four sacks and a lost fumble.
And when East Hamilton’s offense found its groove, quarterback Matt Milita and tailback David Whiteside combined for 310 yards rushing and three touchdowns to propel the Hurricanes to a 43-27 homecoming win over the Trojans in District 5-AAA football action.
“We were trying to run the ball down their throat,” said Milita, who had touchdown runs of 42 and 1 yard among his 19 carries that produced 200 ground yards.
“That was the plan from the beginning.”
Whiteside added 110 yards on 23 carries and scored from 8 yards out in the second quarter.
Milita is the third quarterback coach Ted Gatewood has used this season after starter Nick Woods suffered a season-ending knee injury in the opener against Signal Mountain. Then, against Ooltewah top reserve Caleb Rhodes came up with a thumb injury that still prevents him from playing quarterback.
So, Milita was the next best option for the Hurricanes (2-6, 2-3).
“He’s a tailback playing quarterback,” Gatewood said. “But he’s becoming a pretty good passer and doing a good job for us.”
Milita has excellent speed and gave the Trojans’ defense fits all night, turning in nine runs for double-digit gains totaling 187 yards. He was sacked once for minus-12 yards in the fourth quarter.
With Milita and Whiteside doing most of the damage, the Hurricanes put up 399 yards of offense, just 36 through the air.
Why throw when the run game was crushing it?
The key, Milita said, was almost flawless execution.
“We limited our mistakes and didn’t have any turnovers,” he said. “We were solid up front and getting a push from the offensive line. We just wore them down up front.”
East Hamilton took the opening kickoff and drove 70 yards in 18 plays, but settled for a Cooper Loftin 30-yard field goal. The drive took 8 minutes and 46 seconds off the clock.
Soddy-Daisy responded with an 80-yard, seven-play drive that Christian Bell capped with a 9-yard touchdown run.
It was tough sledding for the Trojans (4-4, 13) after that.
East Hamilton scored 26 unanswered points and had a 29-7 lead with 36.3 seconds left in the third period. Kendall Henderson, Whiteside, Milita and Hunter Gregg had touchdowns in the game-changing scoring spree.
“Their defense didn’t allow many yards after that first drive,” Trojans coach Justin Barnes said. “A little of that was them and a little was us shooting ourselves in the foot.”
The Hurricanes’ defensive thievery started early in the third period when Logan Hammond came up with two interceptions on successive Soddy-Daisy possessions. The Hurricanes turned Hammond’s first pick into a touchdown when Milita raced 42 yards on first down.
“That’s a good feeling,” said Hammond, a senior cornerback. “On the first one I dropped back, saw the slant and jumped the route. On the second, I saw (the receiver) run to the corner and I dropped back and got it.”
Maynor went into the game with four interceptions in 220 attempts over seven games.
“That (29-7 deficit) is a hole that’s tough to dig yourself out of, especially when you throw back-to-back interceptions,” Barnes said. “You won’t make a lot of yardage playing behind the chains all night. It makes you one dimensional, but give coach (offensive coordinator Steve) Garland credit because their scheme gave us some trouble.”
Maynor went into Friday’s game averaging 308 yards passing per game. He fell way short of that mark against the Hurricanes and the interceptions and lost fumble compounded his problems.
Still, the Trojans had 454 yards of offense, 370 coming through the air. Soddy-Daisy ran 49 plays to East Hamilton’s 62, with most of that edge coming on the opening possession.
One of just two starting quarterbacks in District 5-AAA returning for the 2014 season, Maynor had 2,236 yards of total offense – completing 136-of-220 for 2,162 yards – and had a hand in 27 touchdowns.
But, at times Friday he was just a little off and in the second half Hammond and Jeffrey Coleman almost got the third and fourth picks for the Hurricanes.
Still, Maynor kept firing away.
Down by 22 points, Maynor and Blake Smith hooked up on a 70-yard touchdown bomb.
After an onside kick failed, the Hurricanes went 49 yards in four plays with Milita scoring from a yard out.
Then Maynor took the Trojans 80 yards in four quick plays for another score, this one a 27-yard Maynor-to-Bell pass that pulled Soddy-Daisy to within 36-21. The drive started with Maynor hitting Smith on a 48-yard gainer to the Hurricanes’ 32. On the third play of the drive is when Coleman almost came up with his pick.
Following another onside kick that was again recovered by East Hamilton, Henderson bolted in from 19 yards out to push the lead to 43-21.
On its next possession, Soddy-Daisy ran a reverse and Bell pulled up near the right hash mark and lofted a long pass to Smith who ran away from East Hamilton defenders for the 87-yard touchdown play.
The Hurricanes recovered the Trojans’ third onside kick attempt, but wound up punting the ball away.
On second down, Coleman got his interception.
The Hurricanes punted again.
On first down, Maynor was stripped and Isaac Hembree recovered it near midfield.
East Hamilton then ran the final seconds off the clock.
“Defensively, we honored our assignments and went by the game plan,” Gatewood said. “Soddy-Daisy is a great team and coach Barnes has done a great job with that team. We knew we were in for a fight. We had to be as close to perfect as we could be because they can score a lot of points.”
Scoring Summary
Soddy-Daisy 7 0 7 13 – 27
Walker Valley 3 13 13 14 – 43
First Quarter
EH – FG Cooper Loftin 30, 3:14
SD – Christian Bell 9 run (Lucas Rogers kick), 1:09
Second Quarter
EH – Kendall Henderson 3 run (Loftin kick), 10:58
EH – David Whiteside 8 run (kick failed, bad snap), 32.1
Third Quarter
EH – Matt Milita 42 run (kick failed), 10:51
EH – Gregg Hunter 4 run (Loftin kick), 36.3
SD – Blake Smith 70 pass from Maynor (Rogers kick), 17.0
Fourth Quarter
EH – Milita 1 run (Loftin kick), 11:48
SD – Bell 27 pass from Maynor (Rogers kick), 10:40
EH – Henderson 19 run (Loftin kick), 6:18
SD – Smith 87 pass from Bell (kick failed), 3:17
YARDSTICK
SD EH
First Downs 17 26
Rushes-Yards 23-84 51-363
Passing Yards 370 36
Com.-Atts.-Int 14-26-3 6-11-0
Total Yards 49-454 62-399
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 0-0
Punts.-Avg. 1-24 3-37
Penalties-Yds. 4-45 8-72
Individual Statistics
Rushing – Soddy-Daisy: Christian Bell 14-90, Blake Smith 1-10, Tucker Russo 1-6, Hunter Maynor 7-minus 22; East Hamilton: Matt Milita 19-200, David Whiteside 23-110, Kendall Henderson 5-36, Hunter Gregg 2-12.
Passing – Soddy-Daisy: Maynor 13-25-3 223, Bell 1-1-0 87; East Hamilton: Milita 6-11-0 36.
Receiving— Soddy-Daisy: 7-243, Bell 3-98, Levi Thornton 2-23, Logan Southerland 1-6, Tre Carter 1-0; East Hamilton: Jeffery Coleman 3-16, Whiteside 1-7, Gregg 1-7, Tracy Thompson 1-6.
District 5-AAA Standings
School District Overall
Ooltewah 4-0 8-0
Cleveland 4-1 5-4
McMinn County 2-2 2-6
Walker Valley 1-3 4-4
Soddy-Daisy 1-3 4-4
East Hamilton 2-3 2-6
Bradley Central 1-3 3-5
Friday’s Games
East Hamilton 43, Soddy-Daisy 27
Cleveland 24, Walker Valley 17
Bradley Central 49, McMinn County 20
Ooltewah bye
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him at Twitter @larryfleming44)