The West Greene football team could not keep up with Unicoi County on Friday night and fell 46-14 to the No.7 ranked team in Class 3A.
Blue Devils quarterback Gunner Peterson outdueled West Greene’s Aiden Thompson on Friday, finishing the game 9-of-12 passing for 222 yards and four touchdowns.
Thompson was 12-of-15 through the air for 147 yards with two touchdowns.
Unicoi finished the day with 390 yards of total offense with Blaze Rice adding 155 rushing yards on just seven carries with two touchdowns.
West Greene ended the night with 184 yards of total offense.
It did not take long for Unicoi to take the lead. A short punt gave the Devils a short field and on its second offensive snap Petterson found Avery Hatcher for a 27-yard touchdown.
Rice was the star of the Devils’ second series, first racing 60 yards up the home sideline on a draw play, and then finishing the drive with a five-yard touchdown run for a 14-0 lead with 4:07 left in the first quarter.
West Greene turnovers then began to prove costly. First Alex Laningham ran under a pass Thompson put too much air on. Four plays later Peterson threw a 28-yard touchdown to Tanner White.
On the first play of the second quarter Tristan Banks ran for West Greene’s first first down of the night, but on the next play a fumble gave the ball back to the Blue Devils. Unicoi capitalized again with Peterson finding Hatcher for a 52-yard score that made it 27-0.
With 3:12 left in the first half Blaze Rice ripped off a 77-yard touchdown run to improve Unicoi’s advantage to 34-0.
West Greene’s offense had -13 yards to that point in the contest, but things began to click on the following drive. Thompson connected with Tristan Banks and Lucas Winstead before A.J. McMurray pulled in a 31-yard touchdown going up the seam despite interference from the Devils.
Unicoi County was able to score one more time before halftime. They needed just 53 seconds to move 57 yards. Tanner White capped the drive with a 41-yard catch and run that made it 40-7 at the break.
Unicoi’s Brooks Bennett returned the second-half kickoff to the eight-yard line. From there Brady Hendrix threw a five-yard touchdown pass to Zach Jenkins.
West Greene wrapped up the scoring in the fourth quarter when Thompson hit McMurray for a 37-yard touchdown that set final margin at 46-14.
McMurray finished Friday with three catches for 78 yards and two touchdowns.
With the loss West Greene falls to 1-7 on the year, and now looks ahead to a matchup with Region 1-2A foe Cumberland Gap on the final night of the regular season. The winner will earn a home playoff game while the loser will hit the road during the first week of November.
