JELLICO – North Greene gave up every inch it could on Friday night, but when it mattered most the Huskies made a stand unmatched by any group clad in green and gray that has come before them.
With the game on the line and clock winding down North Greene had to make one stop to leave Jellico with a crucial Region 1-1A win. The Huskies bowed their backs, dug their feet in the turf and kept the Blue Devils out of the endzone on the night’s final play to preserve a 19-14 victory.
“We’ve had adversity all week, and some of our best guys are out, but other guys stepped up big time,” North Greene coach Eric Tilson said. “To get a goal line stand like that was great from our guys. To have to bear down and fight for one yard, and win that way makes me so happy.”
North Greene knew coming into the game that they needed to win on Friday to have a chance to host a playoff game, and even though they led most of the evening it took late heroics to capture the win.
Jellico got its final chance to go ahead with 4:04 left while needing to drive 64 yards. The Blue Devils lined up in the Power-I, moving tackles, tight ends and fullbacks around as they tried to find ways to gain an edge against a stout Huskies’ defense.
Jellico ran the ball 10 straight times to get to the two-yard line with 29 seconds on the clock. First the Devils tried to get in on a quarterback sneak, but the Huskies held them out. Both teams scrambled to get lined up again with no timeouts in either corner.
Before Jellico could get down to snap it the umpire tripped on the ball and forced a stoppage with seven seconds left. Once ball was whistled ready for play quarterback Clayton Hamblin called for the snap but bobbled the exchange to his running back Alan Lawson.
The pause allowed the Huskies to swarm and when the clock hit zero a mass of humanity was strewn across the center of the grid. Running into the 20-person pile it was unclear where the ball carrier stopped, where the ball was, or who even finished the play with the ball. The one thing that was clear, no one clad in stripes was signaling a score.
The Huskies erupted in joy and returned to Baileyton with a win they so badly needed.
“There are no words to describe what it feels like to win it like that,” North Greene senior Brandon Weems said. “Every time we play them it’s like this, and it feels great to win it. We had to make a stop, we had to get him down and our guys did it on the one-inch line.”
North Greene heads into a bye week with a 4-3 record and is now 3-1 in Region 1-1A action. Hampton still sits atop the region standings with a 4-0 record. Cosby improved to 3-1 after defeating Cloudland on Friday, and Cloudland is now 2-1. The top two teams in the region will host a first-round playoff game.
“This helps us going forward. It was a big step toward us achieving some of our goals at the end of the year. To be able to come into this place and get a win like this huge,” Tilson said.
North Greene started Friday night without senior quarterback and team leader Thomas Darnell due to injury, but sophomore Jared Swatzell stepped in and gave the Huskies all they could have asked for. He finished the night 8-of-14 passing for 101 yards, and he scored on the ground.
“Jared came in here and gave our offense exactly what we needed,” Tilson said. “He stayed calm and composed and you would have never thought that was his first start at quarterback. He ran the offense. He threw it really well, and he did what we asked of him.”
Brandon Weems had to take on a bigger role as well. He was on the receiving end of all of Swatzell’s 101 yards. He also lined up as a wildcat quarterback and gained 34 yards rushing with a touchdown. Then in special teams he became the Huskies’ punter in Darnell’s absence.
“Brandon is a fiery competitor, and at the end of the day with the game on the line he is who you are going to ask to step up,” Tilson said. “At the 1A level when one guy goes out, you don’t lose one position, you lose multiple positions, and you need multiple guys to step up. I was really pleased to see that we did that tonight.”
After Leon Johnson ended the Blue Devils’ first drive of the night with a sack the Huskies looked like they might take the first lead on Friday. Swatzell hit Weems on a deep ball that went for 43 yards and a few good runs set things up inside the 10-yard line. But the drive ended on downs at the seven-yard line.
The Blue Devils quickly went 96 yards on their three biggest plays of the night after a false start. Caydon Hamblin went 32 yards off the right edge and was helped by a personal foul. Clayton Hamblin then hit Bryson Ballard for 20 yards on a slant. Caydon Hamblin finished the drive with a 28-yard touchdown run for a 7-0 lead with 3:38 left in the first quarter.
North Greene answered with a 77-yard drive. The big play was Swatzell hitting Weems on a deep crossing route that went for 15 yards on fourth and 10. From there Swatzell finished things by scoring on a quarterback sneak from the one-yard line. The extra point missed the mark, and the Devils still led 7-6.
North Greene’s kickoff went out of bounds, but instead of taking the ball on the 35-yard line Jellico asked for a re-kick. On the second chance the ball went through the returner’s hands and North Greene’s Kelson Eastep jumped on it.
With all of the momentum behind them the Huskies started 32 yards from the end zone. Swatzell ran for nine yards, Brayden Weems went around the corner for 12 yards, and Johnson finished things off with a tough five-yard touchdown run. The two-point try failed but North Greene led 12-7 with 10:41 left in the first half.
Johnson carried the ball 18 times for 88 yards on Friday.
Both defenses had the upper hand for the remainder of the first half and through much of the third quarter.
North Greene caught a huge break when Jellico chose to fake a punt from the 19-yard line, and chose to have offensive lineman Julian Jones throw the ball on the play. The pass fell innocently to the turf and North Greene was instantly in the redzone.
Three plays later Brandon Weems took the direct snap and went straight up the middle for a 13-yard touchdown that stretched North Greene’s lead to 19-7 with 42 seconds left in the third frame.
Jellico answered with a 12-play drive that ended with Clayton Hamblin hitting Gavin Dabney in the back of the endzone on fourth down. With 6:31 left to play the Huskies lead was down to 19-14.
After North Greene ran just 2:27 off the clock and was forced to punt Jellico had a chance to put together a game-winning drive. They marched 63 yards, but finished inches away from victory.
The Huskies produced 271 yards of offense on Friday with 170 yards on the ground and 101 through the air.
North Greene will rest next week before taking on Cloudland on October 17 in another big Region 1-1A contest.
