There were tears of sadness and looks of disappointment as there should have been, a long successful season coming to a close with the taste of playoff defeat still fresh in the mouths of the Soddy Daisy football team gathered on the synthetic turf around first year head coach Josh Owensby.
The most successful season in 20 years seemed an afterthought in the wake of Macon County's thorough 34-0 beat down in Friday night's 4A First Round playoff for the men of Troy. And Owensby didn't chastise the tears or disappointment instead embracing it with a one simple caveat he wanted them to embrace when the time was right.
"This is going to happen to all but one team in the end, but it's suppose to hurt. It hurts because it means something to you. But you've brought successful football back to this place and this community appreciates it. It's been the funnest year of my life and I will never forget it, and once you get over tonight, you will too sometime in December," Owensby told the troops.
On the other side of the field, Macon County gathered in front of its band and sang, but it didn't celebrate in a way one would think after knocking off the state's eighth ranked team in such decisive fashion. These Tigers had been in the Trojans' cleats in years past, disappointing losses ending successful seasons far too soon, and well aware of the part those losses played in the program's journey to last night's ninth straight playoff appearance.
"One hundred percent you can't replace playoff experience and the maturity showed tonight. We won't showboat or celebrate a whole lot tonight because we expected this. We made it to the quarterfinals last year and that's not our goal this year. It's a journey for sure from year to year to build on the success and get to the next level through the adversity of disappointing endings," said Macon County coach Kyle Shoulders, now in his seventh year at the helm.
"We've heard a lot the last couple of weeks about how physical Soddy Daisy was and we were not deaf to such things. I think the boys took it personal, so I expected us to play like we did tonight," Shoulders added.
And it was the seasoned Tigers who won the fight in the trenches. Won it so much so that Macon County's first four touchdowns were scored without the ball carrier getting touched en route to paydirt. And on defense, the Tigers shutout a Trojan offense that had chewed up and spit out foes with a relentless rushing attack all year.
"Hats off to them. They've gotten better each year and they have a ton of kids who started as freshman and have been in the fire for four years now. That's a state championship level football team and it would not surprise me at all if they make a return trip to Chattanooga to play for a state title in a few weeks. It's a shame it wound up being two top 10 teams playing in the first round, but that's the way it happened," praised Owensby.
Truth be known, Owensby hopes to draw a lot on the Macon County journey to mold this program he took over and produced just the fourth nine-win season for a school that has been playing football since 1930. His first year success is matched only by the legendary Tom Weathers who won nine games in first year at the Trojan helm in 2004.
Macon County (9-2) and now off to play nemis and top-ranked Upperman next week set the tone early, taking the opening kick and driving it 67 yards on three Zach Borders' runs, the final one going 49 untouched yards for a 6-0 lead after the PAT was missed just a minute and half into the game. After a Soddy Daisy 3-and-out, it took eight running plays to cover 70 yards, this time Zach's brother Gabe Borders going untouched on a 22-yards scoring burst and it was 13-0.
The Trojans had opportunities, including the next drive when they drove inside the red zone highlighted by Alex Pinson's 34-yard run, but a penalty on a short fourth down play made it a passing down that fell incomplete and Soddy Daisy turned it over on downs for the first of five times on the night.
"We had some chances, but a couple of penalties turned short fourth downs into long ones and that hurt, but if you would have told me would go 9-2 and host a first round playoff game back in the summer, I would have ripped my arm off and given it to you," Owensby smiled.
The usually bruising run game Soddy Daisy employs was stymied by the Tigers to the tune of 79 yards on 23 carries as workhorse Gage Welch was limited due to an injury. Of those 23 rushes 17 of them were limited to two yards or less.
Macon County, meanwhile, scored on its first two drives of the second half to put it away comfortably. Quarterback Luke Gammon capped an 80-yard drive in the third period with an eight yard untouched run into the end zone and then Gabe Borders did his best Reggie Bush impression on a fourth down run on the first play of the fourth period for a 40 yard score. Borders out ran the edge to get the first down, broke a tackle and then reversed the field from one sideline to the other to take it home.
"That No. 7 (Gabe Borders) is a special high school football player. Again, though, we had some guys who played their guts out and bought into so much. These seniors are on their third head coach in four years, and nobody wants to go through that, but they bought in. Just really proud and excited about the future of this program," Owensby added.
Zach Borders led all rushers with 189 yards on 15 carries while brother Gabe added 139 on eight totes as Macon County rolled up 397 rushing yards. Pinson had 35 rushing yards, but got 34 of them on one of his nine carries and passed for 65 yards to pace the Trojans' offense.
SCORING SUMMARY
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MACON COUNTY
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13
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7
|
7
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7
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--34
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SODDY DAISY
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0
|
0
|
0
|
0
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-- 6
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1st Quarter
MC 10:24 1Q: Zach Borders 49 yd run; kick missed 6-0
MC 3:15 1Q: Gabe Borders 22 yd run: Eli Gammon (PAT) 13-0
2nd Quarter
MC 5:14 2Q: Zach Borders 54 yd run: Eli Gammon (PAT) 20-0
3rd Quarter
MC 5:31 3Q: Luke Gammon 8 yd run; Eli Gammon (PAT) 27-0
4th Quarter
MC 11:41 4Q: Gabe Borders 40 yud run; Eli Gammon (PAT) 34-0
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TEAM STATS
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Macon Co.
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Soddy Daisy
|
|
First Downs
|
18
|
6
|
|
Rushes-Yards
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19-397
|
23-79
|
|
Passing Yards
|
30
|
65
|
|
Total yards
|
427
|
144
|
|
Passing (Comp-Att-Int)
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3-6-0
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8-21-0
|
|
Fumbles-Lost
|
0-0
|
2-0
|
|
Penalties-Yards
|
7-60
|
5-52
|
|
Punts-Avg,.
|
1-33.0
|
2-44.0
|
|
3rd Down Conversions
|
3-4
|
3-12
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Individual Stats
RUSHING: Zach Borders 15-189, Gabe Borders 8-139, Luke Gammon 8-51, Xavier Bentley 3-32 (MC); GageWelch 5-14, Alex Pinson 9-35, Tucker Ross 4-11, Logan Alexander 4-18, Sean Collision 1-4 (SD).
PASSING: Luke Gammon 3-6-0 30 yards (MC); Alex Pinson 8-21-0 65 yards (SD)
RECEIVING: Gabe Borders 3-30 (MC); Tucker Gibson 3-31, Gage Welch 1-0, Sean Collision 1-4, Aiden Hollis 1-23, Coulter Johnson 2-7 (SD).
RECORDS: Macon County (9-2), Soddy Daisy (9-2).
UP NEXT: Macon County will travel to Upperman for the 2nd round.
(Contact James Beach at 1134james@gmail.com)