The Walker Valley Mustangs will have to wait another week to try and get back on track. For the second week in a row, the Mustangs were unable to find the right combination offensively while the Smith County Owls rolled through the Walker Valley defense.
The Mustangs mounted a rally for a late score, but in the end came up on the losing end of a 30-25 final.
“That's a good football team we just played.
I have a ton of respect for coach (Matt) Dyer. A ton of respect for their program and what they've done the past few years. I'm really impressed with that football team,” said Mustangs head coach Drew Akins.
“We went toe-to-toe. We just didn't get the stops at the right time. We didn't get the scores at the right time. Offensively, we put our defense in two bad spots. When you put your defense in two bad spots down on our side of the field a lot of times that doesn't work out for you,” he continued. “That was the difference in the game, really, just giving them the ball in our own territory twice. When you look at that, it cost us even being up at halftime. At halftime it could have been 7-6 had we not given them the ball on our side of the field.”
The Mustangs (2-3) were victimized all night by Smith County freshman quarterback Kaden Powell, who rushed for 108 yards on 14 carries with four touchdowns.
“Their quarterback is unreal. He's a freshman, 6-2, 230. We knew we had to stop the Buck Sweep. They killed us on the quarterback run off of it,” said Akins. “It's kind of pick your poison. If we had sat back for the quarterback then it would have been Buck Sweep to the front side. They did a good job. They put us in binds all night.”
When Powell handed the ball off more often than not it was to 6-2, 220-pound Peyton Hix. The junior Owl running back bullied his way for 168 yards on 18 touches and a score.
Powell's two first half TD's gave Smith County (3-1) a 12-0 lead with just over nine minutes left before halftime homecoming festivities.
Walker Valley's Tucker Ownby set the Mustangs up in business their own 44-yard line after the second Owls' score. Junior quarterback Evan Schwarzl completed passes to Ownby for 12 yards, Noah Jones for 20 and Brady Montgomery as the Mustangs moved to the Smith 24. Three plays later, Schwarzl found Ownby for a 5-yard TD toss that cut the Owls' lead to 12-7 after the Eli Wilson extra point.
Walker Valley opened the second half with a four play, 63-yard scoring drive capped by a Schwarzl to Blaine Lowe touchdown pass that put the Mustangs on top 13-12 after a missed 2-point conversion try.
Extra points were hard to come by for both teams as the Owls missed four 2-point tries and a kick while the Mustangs came up short three times on conversion attempts.
Smith County made the most of its possession after the Walker Valley TD with a quick five-play scoring drive to retake the lead, 18-13. The Owls recovered the following onside kick, but the Mustangs held on a fourth-and-20 at their own 35-yard line.
After being forced to punt, the Mustangs found life recovering the bobbled kick at the Smith County 5-yard line. Schwarzl again found Ownby in the end zone on the next play to give Walker Valley a one-point, 19-18 lead as the third quarter came to a close.
The Owls wasted little time on their next possession scoring in only three plays to move ahead of the Mustangs by a score of 24-19. Smith took a 30-19 lead minutes later with another quick score to move ahead 30-19 with 1:41 left in the game.
But the Mustangs weren't ready to raise the white flag.
Starting at their own 33-yard line Schwarzl moved the Herd to the Owls' 40-yard line. From there he found Ownby open for 40 yards for the TD. The 2-point try again fell short. The Owls recovered the onside kick and ran out the final 25 seconds to seal the win.
“We couldn't get the stop we needed. We couldn't get the score when we needed. There was a moment when we were going to score and we didn't get the score and that kind of flipped the game. Then they went up two scores,” said Akins.
“I'm proud of our guys for fighting back. We fought back into it, but it was just not enough there at the end.”
Summary
SMITH CO. 6 6 6 12 — 30
WALKER VALLEY 0 7 12 6 — 25
First Quarter
SC — Kaden Powell 10 run (kick failed), 7:17
Second Quarter
SC — Powell 6 run (conversion failed), 9:29
WV — Tucker Ownby 5 pass from Evan Schwarzl (Eli Wilson kick), 5:13
Third Quarter
WV — Blaine Lowe 41 pass from Scharzl (conversion failed), 10:46
SC — Peyton Hix 2 run (conversion failed), 8:39
WV — Lowe 5 pass from Schwarzl (conversion failed), 1:26
Fourth Quarter
SC — Powell 5 run (conversion failed), 10:40
SC — Powell 30 run (conversion failed), 1:41
WV — Lowe 40 pass from Schwarzl (conversion failed), 0:25.2
SC STATS WV
18 First downs 15
45-336 Rushes-Yards 15-42
71 Passing yards 216
407 Total yards 258
2-4-0 Comp-Att-Int 19-30-1
7-49 Penalties-Yards 5-35
3-29.3 Punts-Avg 3-46.7
2-0 Fumbles-Lost 1-1
Individual Stats
Rushing: Powell 14-108 4TD, Hix 18-168 TD, Bryce Currie 10-17, Kylan Johnson 4-30 (SC); Schwarzl 11-38 (WV).
Passing: Powell 2-4-72 (SC); Schwarzl 19-30-216
Receiving: Currie 1-31, Hix 1-41 (SC); Ownby 7-91 3TD, Brady Montgomery 3-22, Eli Denton 2-21, Noah Jones 1-20, Lowe 4-52 TD (WV).
Records: Smith County 4-1; Walker Valley 2-3.