It is the third week of the high school football season and for the third week in a row the Greene Sports Zone Game of the Week features a cross-county clash. This time Chuckey-Doak will travel to The Range to take on West Greene on Friday night.
Chuckey-Doak comes into the game riding high after two wins to start the year, while West Greene is still looking for its first win of the 2025 campaign. But all of that goes out the window in a rivalry contest.
“Chuckey-Doak and West Greene have been playing for a long, long time, upwards of 50 years,” Chuckey-Doak coach Billy Kaylor said. “It’s a cross-town rivalry, a lot of these kids know each other and have grown up together. Heck half of them are kin in some way. That certainly adds a little bit of juice to the game. Our kids are excited about it, I’m excited about, and I think West Greene is too.”
Friday will be the 50th time Chuckey-Doak and West Greene have met on the gridiron. The Black Knights lead the all-time series 30-20, but the 2020 contest went down as a forfeit by West Greene due to COVID-19 concerns. So, even though this will be the 51st time the outcome has been settled it will be the 50th time the teams have lined up across from each other.
West Greene earned a 27-13 win a year ago, but Chuckey-Doak has won five of the last six games in the series.
The Black Knights are coming off a 38-21 win at Sullivan East and early in the year the Black Knights have shown they can be dynamic in both the running and passing games.
Brayden Greene has taken over as the Knights’ top runner, but Marcus Britt has proven to be a capable second option. Out wide Dom Atchison, Dominic Hahnlen and Skylar Davis have all made big plays in the passing game.
That will pose a challenge to a West Greene defense that is giving up 34 points per game this year.
“They have some dynamic playmakers. They have a great running back and some fast receivers that can go get the ball,” West Greene coach Evan Monroe said. “The quarterback played a lot last year and looks a lot better this year. We have to be gap sound and play good defense. We have to be focused on stopping the run first.”
West Greene has just one touchdown through two games this season, but Monroe feels that his team is close to breaking through. The Buffaloes just have to stop letting little mistakes turn into big problems.
The focus on Friday will be establishing the run game, and in a 34-0 loss to North Greene last week the lone bright spot for West Greene was running back Shawn Bailey. Against the Huskies he ran for 69 yards and had 36 yards receiving. This week the Buffaloes will want to build on that.
“When you go back and watch film you see that we are so close.” Monroe said. “We’re a few little things away, but those compound into big things and that keeps us from being successful. We’re on the verge of being a good team, but we have to play a little bit better.”
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. on Friday night at West Greene. The game is the Greene Sports Zone Game of the Week and will be broadcast on the Greene Sports Zone Facebook and YouTube pages as well as the Radio Greeneville Facebook Page.
“It’s a county rivalry, and I hope it’s a charged, electric atmosphere. They need to get a win, we need to get a win, and I think it will be a fun one,” Kaylor said.
