Senior quarterback London Elrod threw for 263 yards and three touchdowns Thursday night to lead Ooltewah past Clinton, 40-21, in the first round of the TSSAA Class 5A state playoffs. The Owls host Oak Ridge, which beat Soddy-Daisy, in next week's second round.
photo by Dennis Norwood
Ooltewah began Thursday night’s postseason game against Clinton playing, uh, unlike Ooltewah.
Then, the light switches clicked on.
On offense.
And defense.
Ooltewah (9-2), with quarterback London Elrod tossing three touchdown passes and an aggressive defense shutting down Clinton practically the entire second half, whipped the Dragons, 40-21, at James N. Monroe Stadium in the first round of the TSSAA Class 5A state playoffs.
“In the first half, we weren’t executing and had some penalties,” said Elrod, who connected with Blake Smith, Scottie Strickland and Kobe Jones for touchdowns of 9, 43 and 9 yards, respectively.
“We were cleaner in the second half and that’s because we were executing our plays. This was a great win.”
Elrod, who went into the playoff opener with 1,525 yards passing with six touchdowns, completed 22-of-32 attempts for 263 yards with an interception. He threw to seven different receivers with Strickland snagging eight passes for 95 yards, Smith four for 77 yards and Jones had one of his better games with five receptions for 71 yards.
The victory allowed Ooltewah, No. 1 seed from Region 4-5A, to advance to the second round where it will host always tough Oak Ridge (10-1), the second seed from Region 3-5A. Oak Ridge built a big lead and then held on to eliminate Soddy-Daisy, 45-33.
The second-round showdown is set for Nov. 13 at 7 p.m.
In its last six playoffs appearances, Ooltewah had reached the quarterfinals once, that coming in 2012 when Columbia Central ended the Owls’ title hopes with a 31-13 victory.
The Owls are well aware of coming up short in the second round. Last year they were thumped by Rhea County, 47-14, and in 2013 they dropped a 26-19 decision to rival East Hamilton.
“Getting past the second round has been our curse the last two years,” said Owls linebacker Jeremiah Jackson, who earlier in the day earned a spot among four semifinalists for the Tennessee Titans Mr. Football Class 5A Lineman of the Year.
“We have to practice hard next week to get over that wall that has kept us out of the third round,” said Jackson, who was credited with 8.5 tackles and one of the Owls’ seven sacks of Clinton quarterback Tyler Thackerson.
“We missed a lot of tackles in the first half and I don’t see how we did that. We work on tackling every day. We tackled better in the second half. You see that score up there. They scored once in the second half and that was late (15.6 seconds remained in the game).”
Jackson went into the game with 107.5 tackles and a school-record total of 413 in his career
Ooltewah started Thursday’s game appearing as if it was still feeling the effects of a tough 45-44 double-overtime win last week over Walker Valley to nail down the region’s No. 1 seed heading into the playoffs.
Owls coach Mac Bryan noticed that as well.
“I told them at half that we have to play like we’re supposed to play the game,” said Bryan, who has won district or region regular-season titles in each of his three seasons with the Owls. “We had to start tackling and making some plays. The plays were there, we just weren’t making them.”
On Clinton’s game-opening drive, the Dragons marched 77 yards in 11 plays with Travist Patrick scoring from 1 yard out. On the drive, Ooltewah defenders missed five tackles and Clinton converted on third-and-16 and fourth-and-3 plays to keep the chains moving.
“We got off to a rocky start,” said defensive tackle Nick Putman, who had 6.5 tackles and two sacks. “We just had to play through it. We always want to play better. Last week was a hiccup (Walker Valley riddled the proud Owls defense for 509 total yards, including 319 through the air) and we all know we didn’t play our game.
“We played our game tonight.”
Clinton coach Josh Kerr thought so as well.
“Our defense was on the field way too much,” he said. “Offensively, we couldn’t put together plays, get drives established and put points on the board. That was our downfall.
“In the end, we had to execute and that’s tough against Ooltewah because of their great defense and a lot of speed over there. They will be tough for anybody to move the ball on. They’re as tough as billed.”
Ooltewah answered Clinton’s opening drive with a 59-yard, seven-play drive capped by Rashun Freeman’s 11-yard run to the end zone. Freeman scored on an 18-yard, third-quarter run to give the Owls a 23-14 lead with 9:18 on the clock.
His two-touchdown performance came on the heels of scoring five times against Walker Valley last week.
“We started to find our offensive rhythm in the third quarter,” said Freeman, who rushed seven times for 49 yards. “We made some mistakes in the first half, but picked up in the second half and were all right in the end.”
Although he didn’t score, tailback Cameron Turner led the Owls’ ground attack with 93 yards on 21 carries.
After Freeman’s first score, Owls place-kicker Aleksander Toser kicked a 24-yard field goal for a 9-7 lead.
Clinton quarterback Tyler Thackerson, who managed to escape the sack-happy Owls’ defense enough to complete 26-of-43 passes for 174 yards, hit paydirt from 3 yards out. But Elrod found Smith for a touchdown with 2.0 seconds left in the half for a 16-14 advantage.
Freeman’s capped Ooltewah’s 67-yard scoring drive to start the second half with an 18-yard burst and stretched the margin to 23-14. Elrod completed passes to Strickland and Jones on third-and-8 and third-and-12 plays to keep the drive alive.
Toser’s second field goal of 29 yards came with 9.9 seconds left in the third quarter and extended the Owls’ lead to 26-14.
After a Clinton punt, Ooltewah took over at its own 41 and needed only four plays to get a touchdown on Elrod’s 43-yard strike to Strickland. On first down Elrod hit Jones for a 19-yard gain and then ended the drive with the game’s longest gainer.
Clinton failed to catch up to Toser’s “pooch” kick on the ensuing kickoff and the Owls’ Corey Heard recovered it at the Dragons’ 30.
Elrod took full advantage of the opportunity by hitting Jones in the end zone on a 9-yard play. The 6-foot-5-inch Jones was sandwiched by two defenders, but reached over them to make the catch.
“Our quarterback made a good throw and I wanted to come up big by making the play,” Jones said.
Clinton’s last touchdown, a 16-yard scramble by Thackerson, came against mostly reserve players on Ooltewah’s defensive unit.
So, now Ooltewah’s attention turns to Oak Ridge, which is led by Tee Higgins, a talented wide receiver and one of the state’s top prospects. The 6-4, 184-pound Higgins, is a semifinalist for the Class 5A Mr. Football Back of the Year.
“We have four goals this year and one is to get past the second round,” Elrod said. “We’re excited about the opportunity and will be ready for it.”
Oak Ridge was eliminated from the 2014 playoffs with a 35-21 quarterfinal loss to Rhea County.
SCORING
Clinton 7 7 0 7 – 21
Ooltewah 9 7 10 14 – 40
First Quarter
CLN – Travist Patrick 4 run (Garrett Zody kick), 7:56
OOL – Rashun Freeman 10 run (kick failed), 6:00
OOL – FG Toser 24, 245
Second Quarter
CLN – Tyler Thackerson 3 run (Zody kick), 2:17
OOL – Blake Smith 9 pass from London Elrod (Toser kick), :02.0
Third Quarter
OOL – Freeman 18 run (Toser kick), 9:18
OOL – FG Toser 29, 9.9
Fourth Quarter
OOL – Scottie Strickland 43 pass from Elrod (Toser kick), 9:31
OOL – Kobe Jones 9 pass from Elrod (Toser kick), 7:56
CLN – Thackerson 16 run (Zody kick), 15.6
YARDSTICK
CLN OOL
First Downs 18 20
Rushes-Yards 28-96 33-161
Passing Yards 174 263
Comp-Att-Int 26-43-0 22-32-1
Plays-Total Yds 71-270 65-424
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 1-1
Punts-Avg 5-37 3-21
Penalties-Yds 3-20 4-35
INDIVIDUALS
RUSHING – Clinton: Isaiah Vibbert 6-31, Travist Patrick 6-29, J’Quan Thomas, Tyler Thackerson 15-18; Ooltewah: Cameron Turner 21-93, Rashun Freeman 7-49, Swan Parker 5-19.
PASSING – Clinton: Thackerson 26-43-0 174; Ooltewah: 22-32-1 263.
RECEIVING – Clinton: Demarea Whitt 10-94, S.J. Powers 3-26, Thomas 6-23, Patrick 3-16, Luke Harrison 2-12, Vibbert 2-3; Ooltewah: Scottie Strickland 8-95, Blake Smith 4-77, Kobe Jones 5-71, Corey Heard 2-14, Andrew Manning 1-10, Freeman 1-2, Parker 1-minus 6.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)
Clinton's senior quarterback Tyler Thackerson (8) was harrassed all night by the tenacious Ooltewah defense. The Owls' Tyler Reid (23) and William Whitson (41) were among players putting pressure on Thackerson, who was sacked seven times, twice by Nick Putman.
photo by Dennis Norwood