Ooltewah's Rashun Freeman hauls in a pass Friday night against Rhea County in a Class 5A quarterfinal game at Ooltewah. Freeman caught a touchdown pass and returned a fumble for another score, but the Owls came up short, 14-13.
photo by M.A. Locke
Three and done.
Rhea County’s Eddie Davis broke through the Ooltewah line, blocked a fourth-quarter extra point and the Golden Eagles went on to beat the Owls, 14-13, Friday night in a TSSAA Class 5A state playoff third-round game before a packed house at James N. Monroe Stadium.
The win avenged Rhea County’s 16-0 loss to the Owls in the regular season and moved the Eagles (10-3) into next week’s semifinals against Sevier County, a 27-6 winner over Morristown West.
The game will be played at Sevier County.
Ooltewah, which lost the season opener and then won 10 of 11 to reach the quarterfinal round, ended its season at 10-3.
“I’m proud of this group,” Owls coach Mac Bryan said. “We won three straight district/region championships. This group of seniors won 30 games in three years and that’s hard to be disappointed in. We got to the third round and had a chance to win tonight, but just didn’t make the plays we needed to make, and give some credit to (Rhea County).”
Ooltewah played without Region 4-5A Player of the Year and Mr. Football Lineman of the Year finalist Jeremiah Jackson after he was arrested on a domestic assault charge on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the TSSAA pulled Jackson from consideration for the Mr. Football award, handing the honor to Centennial’s Tyrel Dodson.
Bryan chose not to play Jackson in the team’s most important game of the season.
“I know Jeremiah’s a great player,” Bryan said, “The kids came to play football tonight, but we would have liked to have (Jackson) on the field.”
So would defensive tackle Nick Putman, who watched the final five-plus minutes of the second quarter sitting on a trainer’s table with an ice wrap on his left ankle.
“Honestly, I didn’t think they could run on us like that,” said Putman, who came back to play the entire second half and finished with six tackles, one for a 2-yard loss. “We needed Jeremiah. “Together we stuff that middle stuff, but stuff happens. I think knowing he wasn’t going to play made us all just play harder.”
Hard-charging running back Mason Stephenson, who gained a career-high 292 yards on 24 carries with two touchdowns in last week’s big win against Farragut, piled up most of his 182 rushing yards against the Owls with quick-hitting runs between the tackles.
Stephenson had five double-digit gainers, including a 67-yard burst to the 2, from where he scored the Eagles first touchdown that tied the game at 7-all. Dylan Smith broke a 58-yard run that put the Eagles’ 78-yard, seven-play drive into high gear in the second quarter.
A few plays later, quarterback Daniel Dodson scored from the 2 to give the Eagles a 14-7 lead with 6:03 left in the second quarter.
“They beat us fair and square and they’re a lot better than the first time we played them,” Putman said. “But we lost by one point and that’s hard. It was pretty frustrating we couldn’t stop them when we needed to.”
Rhea County came to town with a purpose – run the ball down Ooltewah’s throat.
Stephenson leading the way, Eagles amassed 337 yards with its vaunted wing-T offense, every single chunk coming on the ground.
Dodson attempted two passes, both falling incomplete. Rhea ran 23 consecutive plays to start the game before Dodson’s first pass.
“Running is what our offense is designed to do,” Stephenson said. “We’re a whole lot better now than when we played them during the season. We were coming back to whup them and that’s exactly what we did.”
The Eagles damaged the proud Ooltewah defense despite losing five fumbles, one of which late-season hero Rashun Freeman scooped up and rambled 28 yards for the Owls’ first touchdown.
The do-it-all player scored the Owls’ second touchdown on a 14-yard pass from quarterback London Elrod.
In the team’s regular-season finale, Freeman scored five touchdowns, including the game-winner, in a 45-44, double overtime victory that clinched the region title. He followed that up by scoring twice in each of the team’s three playoff games.
In a 13-game season, Freeman gained 728 total yards and scored 24 touchdowns – 17 rushing, four receiving, two on interceptions and one on Friday’s fumble return.
That big-time contribution didn’t make the third-round loss any easier for Freeman.
“Rhea came out fighting hard and the wing-T is hard to defend,” he said. “Our defense played as good as we needed to, but we just couldn’t help them with the offense. There were plays to make and we didn’t make them. You can’t win like that.”
The Owls, who lost to Rhea County, 47-14, in the second round of the 2014 playoffs, had 222 yards of offense, just 36 rushing on 18 carries.
Despite a lot of pressure from the Eagles’ up-front defenders, Elrod completed 21 of 40 passes for 186 yards, hitting Freeman on a 14-yard strike that pulled the Owls to within 14-13.
On the point-after, however, Davis broke through the line and was in the kicker’s face almost before the holder caught the snap and avoided for being offside. After the block, Davis ran to the other end zone and was flagged for a delay-of-game penalty.
“Every day we start practice by working on that,” Bryan said. “That’s hard. (Davis) got there awfully quick, didn’t he?
The whole night, for the most part, was frustrating for the Owls’ defense and Elrod constantly had to leave his comfort zone to get passes off.
“That’s probably the most pressure we’ve had from a down group all year long,” Bryan said. “They’re pass rush was really good. I thought our defense played pretty well, although they broke some runs on us.
“We never could find any offensive rhythm. We couldn’t put a lot of plays together and I thought their pass rush was the real key. They got to us a lot. Most people don’t ever touch our quarterback.”
A clear example of an opportunity the Owls failed to take advantage of, Rhea County kicker Bodhi Buffenbarger booted three consecutive kickoffs out of bounds – a rarity in these parts. The Owls finally got the fourth try and set up shop at their own 44.
Three plays later they punted.
Ooltewah drove to the Eagles’ 21 late in the second quarter, but the drive fizzled and on fourth down Aleksander Toser missed a 37-yard field goal.
“We had opportunities to make plays and we didn’t make them,” Elrod said. “You can credit Rhea for that; they played a hell of a game. The loss is disappointing because I’ve loved playing with this team. It’s very upsetting.”
William Whitson led the Owls with 10 tackles while Tyler Reid, Freeman, Deonte McClain and Jaylin Rogers each had seven. Reid, Freeman, McClain, Rogers and Lorenzo Pickett each recovered a fumble.
SCORING
Rhea County 7 7 0 0 – 14
Ooltewah 7 0 6 0 – 13
First Quarter
OOL – Rashun Freeman 28 fumble return (Aleksander Toser kick), 2:29
RHEA – Mason Stephenson 2 run (Bodhi Buffenbarger kick), 0:52
Second Quarter
RHEA – Daniel Dotson 2 run (Buffenbarger kick), 6:03
Third Quarter
OOL – Freeman 14 pass from London Elrod (kick blocked), 10:58
YARDSTICK
RC OOL
First Downs 15 12
Rushes-Yards 58-337 18-36
Passing Yards 0 222
Comp-Att-Int 0-2-0 21-40-1
Total Yards 60-337 58-222
Fumbles-Lost 9-5 2-0
Punts-Avg 5-34 8-30
Penalties-Yds 9-65 3-23
INDIVIDUALS
RUSHING – Rhea County: Mason Stephenson 20-182, Dylan Smith 7-87, Cody Bice 15-30, Daniel Dotson 11-19, Eddie Davis 5-19; Ooltewah: Rashun Freeman 10-25, Cameron Turner 7-23, Scottie Strickland 1-minus 12.
PASSING – Rhea County: Dodson 0-2-0 0; Ooltewah: London Elrod 21-40-1 186.
RECEIVING – Rhea County: None; Ooltewah: Joseph Norwood 4-61, Peyton Oliver 4-24, Kobe Jones 2-24, Freeman 2-20, Strickland 4-17, Andrew Manning 1-5, Ethan Walls 1-11, Corey Heard 1-9, Turner 2-5.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)
Rhea County quarterback Daniel Dodson tries to pick up yardage while hoping to avoid Ooltewah's Nick Putman (7) and A.J. Diggs (29) in their state playoff football game Friday night.
photo by M. A. Locke