Bradley Central's Lameric Tucker (15) looks for running room Friday night as Cleveland's Treasure Johnson (3) bears down on him. Tucker scored the game-wining touchdown in Bradley's 27-21 Region 2-6A win over the Blue Raiders.
photo by M.A. Locke
CLEVELAND, Tenn. – Bottled up most of the night, Bradley Central’s Lameric Tucker capped a clutch 85-yard touchdown drive by scoring on a 7-yard run with 1:16 left and the Bears pulled out a thrilling 27-21 Region 2-6A football victory over rival Cleveland before 6,000-plus fans at Bear Stadium.
Tucker touched the ball five times – two rushes, two pass receptions and one kick return – and his lone TD provided the winning points as the Bears won their third straight from the Blue Raiders and lead the overall series 28-15.
“Lameric is a gamer,” said teammate Stephen Muhonen, who came up big with Tucker covered double-covered throughout.
“When you need him he’s going to come up big. He’s clutch.”
With the game tied at 21-21, Bradley (3-1, 2-0) was backed up to its own 15 after a Cleveland punt. On the second play, quarterback Dylan Standifer hooked up with Tucker on a 43-yard pass play.
Tucker had dropped a strike from Standifer on the Bears’ previous possession and was a potential TD. Bradley punted a play later.
Eight plays after Tucker’s big catch, the highly touted senior roared into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown with 1:16 remaining.
“This is the last Cleveland-Bradley game for a lot of seniors,” said Tucker, who was held to 53 yards of offense. His kick return went for 4 yards. It was an important win for us in that way.”
Tucker, as well as Bradley coach Damon Floyd, expected the Blue Raiders to pay special attention to the Bears’ leading receiver. He has 21 catches for 441 yards – an average of 21-yards per catch – and three TDs.
“They were playing over the top on him, safeties were finding him and they showed a lot of respect for Lameric,” Floyd said. “It was time for other guys to step up.”
One player that did was Muhonen, a senior wideout who grabbed seven catches for 144 yards. He had four receptions for 100 yards in the first half, including a 68-yarder, when the Bears built a 21-7 halftime lead.
On Bradley’s first TD drive, it faced a third-and-6 and Standifer hit Muhonen on middle screen that picked up 16 yards to move the chains. Nick Howell scored from the 3 four plays later.
Just before halftime the Bears had a first-and-goal from the Cleveland 3. Remarkably, after a personal foul penalty and Standifer’s sack that lost 12 yards, Bradley was facing a first-and-goal from the 32.
Muhonen caught a pass from Standifer and bulled his way to the 1. Standifer sneaked the final yard for a touchdown on the next play as time ran out.
“This was probably Stephen’s best game, but I don’t really look at stats,” Floyd said. “Stephen came to play tonight and they were bracketing Lameric a lot. We had to go to some other people and Dylan found them.”
Still, Muhonen still has yet to score his first touchdown.
“That would be correct,” he said. “I don’t play for myself. I play for the team. I couldn’t care less if I had a catch tonight. I just want to win. Obviously, you want to score some touchdowns, but as long as we’re scoring it doesn’t bother me who is scoring. That just doesn’t affect me.”
Something that bothered Cleveland coach Scott Cummings was Bradley’s effectiveness running between the tackles. That’s where Bradley’s Nick Howell did some serious damage, carrying 21 times for 140 yards with a touchdown.
“I really didn’t think they could do that,” Cummings said. “I really didn’t, but you have to give Bradley credit.”
Cummings’ remarks that he thought Bradley couldn’t run the ball effectively inside were published by the local newspaper. They also found their way into the Bradley locker room.
“He (Cummings) challenged our offensive line in the paper and we had signs up all over the locker room and our guys took it to heart,” Floyd said. “We were going to prove we could run the ball and our offensive line deserves this win tonight.”
The Bears ran for 188 yards and Adam Mullis gained 74 on 12 carries to help Howell with the load. With the ground game churning up yards, Standifer was 17 for 20 for 269 yards with one touchdown.
Bradley had 457 yards of total offense, averaging 7 yards per play.
“The main thing is we have to limit our mistakes so we won’t be in situations like that last drive,” Standifer said. “That drive was huge and we have to do that the rest of the season if we want to win football games. We’ve got a huge chunk of the region schedule coming up and this win against our big rival gives us some momentum.”
Cleveland (3-2, 1-1) struggled after its opening drive, but wound up with some decent offensive numbers for the tough loss.
Quarterback Kellye Cawood rushed for two touchdowns on runs of 1 and 5 yards and threw a 6-yard TD pass to Micaleous Elder. Cawood was 10 for 18 for 76 yards.
Keegan Jones had a superlative rushing performance, gaining 133 yards on 16 carries.
“The bottom line is Bradley made big plays and we knew we couldn’t allow big plays,” Cummings said. “It was a heck of a high school football game and our kids showed a lot of heart coming back.”
Neither coach could be happy with a bushel basket full of 29 combined penalties called by game officials.
Cleveland was flagged 14 times for 113 yards. Bradley had 15 for 163 yards.
“Well, we came out with the win, but made it about as ugly as you can,” Floyd said. “Way too many penalties, but this was a rivalry game and the win is the most important thing. We sure made it hard on ourselves.”
SCORING
Cleveland 7 0 7 7 – 21
Bradley Central 14 7 0 6 – 27
First Quarter
CLEV – Kellye Cawood 1 run (Harshil Patel kick), 9:36
BRAD – Nick Howell 9 run (Clay Shoemaker kick), 5:49
BRAD – Saylor Clark 17 pass from Dylan Standifer (Shoemaker kick), 0:58
Second Quarter
BRAD – Standifer 1 run (Shoemaker kick), 0:00
Third Quarter
CLEV – Micaleous Elder 6 pass from Cawood (Patel kick), 3:09
Fourth Quarter
CLEV – Cawood 5 run (Patel kick), 9:16
BRAD – Lameric Tucker 7 run (kick failed), 1:16
YARDSTICK
CL BC
First Downs 17 22
Rushes-Yds 33-165 45-188
Passing Yards 76 269
Comp-Att-Int 10-18-0 17-20-1
Plys-Tot Yds 51-241 65-457
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 3-1
Punts-Avg 4-30.0 2-35.5
Penalties-Yds 14-113 15-163
INDIVIDUALS
RUSHING – Cleveland: Keegan Jones 16-133, Kellye Cawood 13-19, Micaleous Elder 4-13; Bradley Central: Nick Howell 21-140, Adam Mullis 12-74, Lameric Tucker 2-9, Team 1-minus 1, Dylan Standifer 9-minus 34.
PASSING – Cleveland: Cawood 10-18-0-76; Bradley Central: Standifer 17-20-1-269.
RECEIVING – Cleveland: Romeo Wykle 2-21, Jones 3-12, Robert Flowers 2-9, Elder 2-5, A. Ferguson 1-29; Bradley Central: Stephen Muhonen 7-144, Howell 7-64, Tucker 2-44, Saylor Clark 1-17.
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)