Back In The Hardware Business, Marion Wins 2A Title

Tim Starkey understood the moment Saturday evening perhaps as well as any of the several thousand Marion County clad fans who made the trek from the football-crazed community of Jasper for Saturday night's 2A BlueCross Bowl championship at Finley Stadium.

He knew it despite having played for and coached at that other football crazed community a few miles down the road, a hated but respected enemy clad in South Pittsburg orange. Since 2015 he has been a member of the Jasper staff before taking the reins of the program last season.

He was there for two straight championship runs, both which ended in defeat. But as fans refused to leave, taking in every special moment last night following Marion County's 17-7 win over Milan, Starkey cast an eye upwards towards those stands and took it in.

"This thing is so much bigger than me. There have been so many people, die hard Marion fans, who have passed away this past year who lived to see this moment again, to see the program rise back to the top. There are so many kids on this team who are wearing the same jersey number as their dads did when they played. It means so much to so many,' said Starkey amidst it all.

It had been 29 years since the Warriors hoisted a gold ball trophy and this one will sit next to four other ones from glory days of the past back in the school trophy case. And it came for a team filled with great expectations entering the year, but for one which also stubbed its toe twice early in the year. But doubts never creeped in about returning here and once here, a cast of nine senior defensive starters for the Warriors were confident the walk through the desert was over.

"When the week started, we knew Milan was physical and ran the football. That's our bread and butter, so there were a lot of smiles this week getting ready for this one. We were excited," said defensive lineman Myles Mayes, a 6-3 270-pound rock last night.

Neither team will lay claim to inventing the forward pass, so it was wall against wall most of the night and the yards were harder to find than they are in downtown New York city. But the Warriors had one shiny object that was different than everything else: Samuel Pickett, the Mr. Football finalist in the No. 4 jersey.

While both teams banged and banged against one another, Pickett earned MVP honors just as his dad did in a South Pittsburg jersey in 1999. He didn't come close to his pop's 231-yard, 6 TD performance on that December night 25 years ago, but his presence was the difference.

Pickett scored on a 19-yard run and hauled in a 75-yard catch and run for score in a game where such chunks were nonexistent. His 60 yards rushing on eight totes and 86 yards receiving on four catches accounted for 146 of Marion's 234 total yards. Between the two teams sans Pickett's numbers, a total of 83 plays were run for a grand total of 279 yards.

And he did it with a heavy but motivated heart.

"My grandfather passed away on Sunday and he was the original Sam Pickett. My dad just told me to go out and have fun, but I was here to uphold that Pickett legacy. It was a special night," said the senior tailback.

The Warriors took a 14-0 lead and were up 14-7 at the halftime break thanks to those two scores. Other than that, Milan held serve with its defense limiting Marion to just 18 yards on 11 plays other than Pickett's 123 total first half yards. In fact, Marion only ran two plays on Milan's side of the field in the half.

The big play came on Milan's first possession, though, when Kevin Tipton intercepted a Milan pass and returned it 55 yards to the 19. Pickett took the first carry, ran into traffic in the middle and bounced it outside to go untouched for the score with just 1:14 ticked off the opening clock.

The Warriors then scored on the first play of the second period when QB Tilton Pickett hit Sam on a 30-yard pass and watched him take it the rest of the way for a 14-0 with 11:49 left in the half.

"Sam is who he is. You know what kind of player he is and he showed it. It was something where he was the one guy on the field who was different from everyone else. It along with the defense were the differences," said Starkey, who played on that South Pitt title team with Pickett's dad.

The Bulldogs put together their one effective drive of the game and it was classic Milan football. Forgoing even the slightest inclination to ever pass again, the Bulldogs ran it 15 straight times before Jaydon Peete scored on a fourth down rush from the 1 with 3:05 remaining. The drive looked like this: runs of 5, 1, 5, 6, 4, 6, 1, 8, 0, 1, 14, -1, 7, 1, and 1.

After that, Milan was limited to 85 total yards over the final seven drives and when Leo Polovin hit a chip shot 21-yard field goal with 6:20 left in the game two scores looked as implausible as finding a million dollar bill walking to your car in the parking lot.

While Pickett's damage was done in the first half, it proved more than enough with the way the Warrior defense stepped up to the plate following the one scoring drive allowed much like they did after a midseason loss to Tyner left them 5-2.

"We've had some good teams here and just couldn't close the deal," Starkey said of runner-up finishes in 2014, 2015 and 2016, the last two with him as a member of the coaching staff. "These guys were determined to get it done this year. After the loss to Tyner (31-28 in OT) they were hurt, but I think it helped us. They didn't want to lose this year and that was our second loss, but it motivated them. We went to work and closed the deal."

Over the final four regular season games, Marion averaged 61 points and gave up just 31 points total . So when Milan scored its lone TD, the Warriors went back to that mentality of work, getting three stops on downs, forcing two punts and closing the game with an interception.

The biggest stop on downs came with 9:18 remaining when Ashton Martin and Mayes stopped a fourth-and-inches at Milan's own 27 to set up the final field goal to seal the deal. Joshua Langston had 12 tackles for the Warriors and Mayes added seven. Zaiden Humphrey also had an interception.

Milan got seven tackles each from De'marrion Kelley and Terrance Moses and fumble recovery by Jadon Peete, who also rushed for 113 yards on 26 hard carries.

MARION COUNTY	7	7	0		--00
MILAN	0	7	0		-- 00

SCORING SUMMARY:

First Quarter
MC 10:46 Sam Pickett 19 run (Leo Polovin kick) 0-7

Second Quarter

MC 11:49 Sam Pickett 75 pass from Tilton Pickett (Leo Polovin kick) 0-14

M 03:05 Jaydon Peete 1 run (Joshua Shook kick) 7-14

Fourth Quarter

MC 06:20 Leo Polovin 21 field goal 7-17

TEAM STATS	Marion Co.	Milan
First Downs	8	10
Rushes-Yards	28-99	46-141
Passing Yards	135	50
Total yards	234	191
Passing (Comp-Att-Int)	7-11-0	3-10-2
Penalties-Yards	2-10	3-15
Punts-Average	5-34.4	4-37.5
Fumbles-Lost	1-1	1-0
Third Down Conversions	2-9	3-12
Time of Possession	18:56	29:04

Individual Stats

Rushing: Sam Pickett 8-60; Zaiden Humphrey 6-18; Mason Mays 6-17; Tilton Pickett 7-8; TEAM 1-(-4) (MC); Jaydon Peete 26-113; De’marrion Kelley 6-22; Terrence Moses 1-11; Carson Kelley 1-; greg Hat=yes 4-0; will Johnson 8-(-5) (M).

Passing: Tilton Pickett 7 of 11 for 135 yards and 1 touchdown (MC): Will Johnson 2 of 8 for 6 yards and 1 interception; Greg Hayes 1 of 2 for 44 yards and 1 interception (M).

Receiving Sam Pickett 4-86; Zaiden Humphrey 2-10; Kevin Tipton 1-39 (MC); Terrence Moses 1-44; Cordarius Johnson 1-4; Greg Hayes 1-2 (M).

Most Valuable Player: Sam Pickett (Marion County).

Notable: Marion County wins first state title in 29 years.

Records: Marion County 13-2; Milan 13-2.

(Contact James Beach at 1134james@gmail.com)