In a season marked by high-flying offense that has broken records and outscored almost everyone in the state, the Greeneville football team is moving on because its defense turned in a punishing effort on Friday night.
On a rain-soaked and frigid night at Burley Stadium in the second round of the Class 4A playoffs the Greene Devils stonewalled Upperman on the way to collecting a 21-7 win.
“I’m proud of these guys for how they handled adversity. They kept playing hard, they kept battling and they played for four quarters,” Greeneville coach Eddie Spradlen said. “That defense was flying around and making plays. Then offense put together two good drives in the second half to put the game away. The coaches did a great job at halftime to put us in position to get this win.”
It was a much different contest than the one played in August in Baxter when the Greene Devils flew past the Bees with big plays and quick scores on the way to a 48-14 win. In the rematch every yard mattered, every play mattered and the Greene Devils out battled the Bees for 48 minutes.
“We challenged them to stay in the ring and keep fighting,” Spradlen said. “We knew they we were going to try to out power us and the defense did a good job of holding them. We did a really good job of getting pressure. Jack (Lister) made a few plays in the backfield and we made sure we were playing our assignments.”
Upperman came into the contest with an offensive game plan built around running between the tackles, grinding out tough yards and imposing their will on the opponent. With temperatures hovering just above freezing and rain falling all night, the forecast played right into the Bees’ hands. But the Greene Devils defense was ready to take on the challenge and returned a level of physicality Upperman could not handle.
“This was a hard-fought game, and that is a good football team, way better than when we played them earlier in the year,” Greeneville senior linebacker Jack Lister said. “It felt really good to set the tone from get go against a team like that. It was about playing physical and outworking them every single play. We knew how hard they were going play, and we knew we had to work this week to match that.”
Greeneville’s reward for winning on Friday is a state quarterfinal trip to Alcoa next week. The Tornadoes are the No.1 ranked team in Class 4A and have won 11 consecutive state championships. Greeneville is ranked No.2 in Class 4A. Both teams enter the contest with 12-0 records.
“We have to continue to build and get better,” Spradlen said. “It’s going to be an unbelievable challenge and nobody is going to give us a chance. We’re the underdogs. We just have to show up, give it all we’ve got, and see what happens.”
Greeneville’s defense was put to the test early after an interception by James Shaeffer set up the Bees’ offense on the 24-yard line. Upperman made it to the seven-yard line before Lister and Ty Riban combined for a stop in the backfield and Kaine Ricker broke up a pass in the endzone to stop the threat.
The Greene Devils offense turned to running back Jude Dyer and the senior ripped off a 28-yard gain on first down. He followed that up by taking a handoff to the right and beating the defense to the edge before racing up the sideline for a 41-yard touchdown that gave Greeneville a 7-0 lead with five minutes left in the first quarter.
Dyer had his best night of the year in terms of production, running it 17 times for 188 yards and two touchdowns. As a team Greeneville ran for 248 yards.
“Jude ran unreal in that first quarter, then I think he got a little smoked. I told him at halftime that we needed his best in the second half, and he really ran the ball hard,” Spradlen said.
That was Greeneville’s only scoring drive of the first half. They were stopped on the five-yard line on the next series and went three-and-out twice.
The Bees finished the half with a 13-play drive that covered 70 yards. They capped it with quarterback Elijah Barlow lobbing a pass to Jude Fitzpatrick out of the backfield. No one picked him up on the 13-yard touchdown and Upperman tied things at 7-7 with 38 seconds remaining before halftime.
Dyer stepped up again to start the third quarter. This time he went up the middle from the 46-yard line and once he broke through the line he was behind the defense and off to the races for a 14-7 lead.
Greeneville’s defense did its job on its first series of the second half with Gustavo Alvarez and Riban standing up Gavin Frazier on third and one to force a punt.
Starting at the midfield stripe the Devils’ offense went back to work and Ricker ripped off runs of 15 and 19 yards. He then slipped a shovel pass to Taren Claridy. The Mr. Football semifinalist turned it up and went inside the tackle before trotting across the goal line for a 12-yard score that pushed the lead to 21-7.
The Bees follwed with a 76-yard drive. But on fourth down from the four-yard line Barlow sent a jump ball to 6’5” Ole Miss commit Colton Johnson. Claridy outleaped the seldom-used tight end and knocked the pass away to end the scoring threat.
Ricker ended the Bees’ next drive with an interception that effectively iced the game with 5:30 left to play.
Greeneville finished with 316 yards of offense while the Bees produced 226 yards. Ricker threw for 68 yards and ran for 89 yards on the soggy night. Claridy had three catches for 63 yards and scored a touchdown. That stretched his state-record total to 32 receiving touchdowns this season.
