Greeneville seniors Carson Quillen and Drew Armbrister started celebrating their Labor Day weekend in true fashion on Friday night as they seized the means of production and outworked everyone on the field while their Greene Devil compatriots upended Class 6A Dobyns-Bennett 35-0.
Quillen led a Greeneville offense that seemed unstoppable for much of the night while Armbrister led the Devils’ stone-wall defense that shut out the Indians for the first time since 1921.
“This was a great effort by our guys. We had two senior captains really step up for us tonight,” Greeneville coach Eddie Spradlen said. “We didn’t get Carson as many carries as we wanted to last week, but he made some big plays tonight. Drew Armbrister stepped up on defense and played a heck of a game, it felt like he was in on every tackle.”
Greeneville’s run game, led by Quillen, was dominant on Friday night as it churned out 395 yards. Quillen ran 21 times for 241 yards and three touchdowns. Quarterback Caden Baugh, running the read option to near perfection, picked up 140 yards on 10 carries with another touchdown on the ground.
That ground game went to work early and on Greeneville’s first drive of the game Quillen took a handoff up the middle. After wiggling through traffic at the line of scrimmage he raced 65 yards for a 7-0 lead just over two minutes into the contest.
“Carson didn’t play any on defense tonight. He’s played every down both ways the past two years, but I just want him to be a dog like he was tonight on offense. Tonight when he touched the ball he wasn’t going to be tackled,” Spradlen said.
After the defense shut down the Indians’ first drive of the night the Devils quick-strike attack went to work again. This time Baugh dropped to pass and hit Zaydyn Anderson on a shallow crossing route. Anderson blew through the grasp of one defender and at that point no one was going to catch the track star as he covered 75 yards and stretched Greeneville’s lead to 14-0 with 3:06 left in the first quarter.
“We’re a big play offense. Going against a big physical defensive line we wanted to get the ball in those playmakers hands. And any time they touch the ball there is a chance something special happens,” Spradlen said.
Greeneville found the endzone one more time in the first half. The Devils covered 63 yards in six plays. Baugh picked up nearly half of that on a 31-yard burst around the right side. Quillen capped the drive with a powerful nine-yard run in which he plowed a pair of defenders across the goal line.
Dobyns-Bennett came within inches of scoring before halftime, but the Greene Devils defense stepped up in a big way to preserve the shutout. Quarterback Austin Sykes gave the Indians their only redzone appearance when he went around the corner to the left on a fourth down and picked up 24 yards.
That gave Dobyns-Benntt first and goal from the eight-yard line with less than three minutes remaining. On fourth down Sykes hit tight end Peyton Franklin in the flat, but linebacker Jack Lister came up hard and stopped him in his tracks inside the one-yard line for a turnover on downs.
Lister and Hayden Moore saw extra reps at linebacker after Noah Murray went down with injury early in the game, but behind the leadership of Armbrister the Devils’ linebacking corps caused all sorts of problems for the Indians on Friday.
“Holding a big team like D-B to zero points is a great feeling, it’s not often you get to do that,” Armbrister said. “To put up a goose egg on a TV game means a lot to us. We had to play some young guys today that are inexperienced. But they are hungry and they are working hard every day in practice. It’s a next-man up mentality, and those guys came in and did their job.”
Greeneville’s first drive of the second half covered 90 yards and saw Quillen carry the ball seven times for 59 yards. The final play was a one-yard plunge by Quillen, and not even being slung around by his facemask could stop him from crossing the goal line.
The Greene Devils’ final score of the night came on a 61-yard run by Baugh that pushed the advantage to 35-0 with 2:44 left in the third quarter.
Greeneville kicker Samuel Gourley was a perfect 5-for-5 on extra points on Friday.
The Devils produced 501 yards of total offense on Friday. Baugh threw for 106 yards while Anderson had 81 receiving yards.
Dobyns-Bennett finished the day with 204 yards of total offense. Sykes ran for 68 yards and threw for 20 yards, and Corde Moore ran for 87 yards.
