ELIZABETHTON – West Greene made a stop at Warpath Lane to square off with the Happy Valley Warriors on Friday night but couldn’t get anything in motion and left with a 52-0 defeat.
“You look up and it’s 14-0 halfway through the second quarter with six minutes to go in the half and we’re like ‘hey, we’re in a ball game,’ and then we shot ourselves in the foot and had a couple of untimely turnovers and it got out of hand. Second half we came out and played okay, but I made some poor coaching decisions and tried to force a ball a couple of times and they took advantage of it. We just didn’t play well tonight,” West Greene head coach Evan Monroe stated.
The Buffs kept their deficit to a manageable margin for eighteen minutes. After that, things started getting worse by the minute and the game slowly slipped away.
Happy Valley set themselves up nicely with a 52-yard punt return by Artee Bahn to the 3-yard line were it started the night on offense.. Gabe McDougald plunged into the end zone for a one-yard quarterback sneak and Happy Valley led 7-0 with 7:56 in the first.
The Buffs picked up a pair of first downs on their second drive aided by a pass interference call and an 11-yard catch by Peyton Hilton. On 4th down they attempted to convert, but Kyler Patterson’s pass to Aiden Thompson was short of the sticks.
West Greene was fortunate enough to get the ball when Happy Valley fumbled in the red zone. McDougald fumbled the shotgun snap and made a play on his feet, but ran into a wall and fumbled the ball a second time attempting to gain more yards.
West Greene’s Austin Brown delivered a beautiful 37-yard deep ball down the middle of the field for Kyler Patterson on the next play. The Buffs couldn’t gain any yards on the drive after that and punted. They were fortunate to not have the punt blocked as Happy Valley’s pressure nearly created a disaster.
Happy valley led 7-0 after the first quarter and started finding their rhythm and put it in gear in the second. Releford started the next drive with a 12-yard run then McDougald broke off an 18-yard run. Releford gained 14 yards and McDougald picked up 17 yards to land them at the four-yard line. Releford finished the drive with a four-yard touchdown run. The Warriors led 14-0.
West Greene attempted to convert again on fourth down and not only didn’t get it, but gave up six in the process. Releford picked up a fumble and returned it for a 41-yard scoop-and-score. Happy Valley extended its lead to 20-0 halfway through the quarter.
Things went from bad to worse when West Greene fumbled again and Happy Valley’s Tyler Bailey recovered it at the 15-yard line. Releford scored once more to complete the hat trick in the first half with a tough 23-yard touchdown.
Releford wasn’t done yet. He capped off his senior night with a 57-yard pick six to put Happy Valley ahead 33-0 with 3:30 until halftime.
The Warriors got the ball back with a little time left to move the ball and score again before the half. Releford gained 20, McDougald gained 10, and Parker gained the rest on a 39-yard touchdown reception with 20 seconds left. Hilton stuck a hand up and blocked a low PAT attempt.
Happy Valley led 39-0 at the half.
The halftime break didn’t cool off Happy Valley’s red-hot end to the first half. Bahn took the second half kickoff 75 yards to the end zone. Hilton blocked another kick and the score was 45-0 as the clock kept rolling.
The Warriors made a very peculiar decision to go for an onside kick up 45 points, but nonetheless did not recover and gave West Greene a shorter field. The Buffaloes gained two-straight first downs with a pair of 12-yard catches by Hilton. The drive ended with cruel irony and resulted in the Buffs giving up their third defensive touchdown of the night. Landon Keller jumped a route along the Buffs sideline and raced 90 yards to the end zone for a pick six.
The score would increase to 52-0 and stay that way for the final eighteen minutes.
West Greene dropped to 0-8 (0-2) and Happy Valley improved to 9-0 (2-0). This sets up each team’s week 11 matchups that will decide the final Region 1-2A standings and playoff seeding. Happy Valley will travel to South Greene for the Region 1-2A Championship and West Greene will host Cumberland Gap to determine the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds.
“We’ve got to execute better. I’ve got to call a better game and I’ve got to make better decisions. I made some boneheaded decisions, so we’ve just got to keep coming to work every week and getting better,” Monroe expressed.
West Greene has two weeks before that matchup and will travel to Erwin to play Unicoi County next week.
