The Milk Can is up for grabs on Friday night as West Greene travels to South Greene for the annual clash of bitter cross-county rivals.
“From everything I hear this one is going to be wild,” West Greene coach Caleb Slover said. “They have the Milk Can and they’ve had it for a while. It’s a big pride thing for both communities. Being so close together West Greene and South Greene battle in every sport. I have coached at Rebel Hill before so at least I know how rowdy it gets with the crowd behind you on the visiting sidelines, and then I guess I’ll figure the rest of this rivalry out on Friday.”
Not only is the Milk Can on the line on Friday, but the game is also the Region 1-2A opener for both teams.
“The biggest thing is that it’s a region game. It’s a rivalry and the Milk Can is big for the community, but we have to start conference play 1-0. We can’t win this conference if we start 0-1,” South Greene coach Shawn Jones said.
South Greene enters Friday’s game with a 3-2 record and coming off a 29-28 overtime win over Chuckey-Doak. A win over the Buffaloes would wrap up the County Cup for the Rebels. West Greene is 0-4 on the year after last week’s game with Eagleton was cancelled due to weather.
The Rebels have won three in a row in the series and won 42-20 last year at West Greene. South Greene owns the all-time series record 37-15. The Rebels have won seven of the last eight meetings.
The first player West Greene will have to try to stop on Friday is running back Tripp Neas who has rushed for 851 yards and 16 touchdowns through five games. Last week against Chuckey-Doak Neas carried it 30 times for 185 yards and four touchdowns.
“They are going to be physical and they are going to run the ball at us,” Slover said. “I think any coach in East Tennessee would give (Neas) the ball as much as they could if they had him in the backfield. He’s a talented player and he does a lot of things well. It will be a tall task to slow him down.”
West Greene’s offense runs through quarterback Aiden Thompson who leads the team in both passing and rushing. The Rebels will have to be ready for a lot of quick passes and tackling in space, but when given the chance receivers Hunter Franklin and A.J. McMurray among others can make plays down field.
“Their best athlete is going to touch the ball every play,” Jones said. “We have to be ready for their quarterback. They will run a lot of screens and bubbles to try to add to the running game, then they’ll try to hit you downfield.”
Kickoff for Friday’s game is scheduled for 7 PM from Rebel Hill. The game will be streamed live on Greene Sports Zone’s Facebook and YouTube pages. It will also be live on the airwaves on WIKQ103.1 FM.
