A Patriot pounding… Jr. Cyclones close out home season with 21-0 whipping of Liberty Bell
Published 1:22 am Saturday, September 28, 2019
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Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Jr. Cyclone Zeth Mullins makes a perfect dive at the pylon for a TAD touchdown.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
The TAD defense was in the Liberty Bell backfield all night as Matthew Kent (36) and Seth Campbell (66) chase down the Patriot quarterback.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
A Liberty Bell running back finds a stiff TAD defense in trying to gain yards on a rush.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Cameron Baker of the Jr. Cyclones makes a bone-crushing hit on a Liberty Bell receiver to jar the ball loose for an incompletion.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Jr. Cyclone receiver Jeremiah Norris turns up field after a reception.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Jr. Cyclone running back Jeriah Griffin finds a running lane around the end in Thursday's game against Liberty Bell.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Luke Whaley of T.A. Dugger is pushed out of bounds after making a reception for a good gain.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Matthew Kent (36) knocks the ball out of the Liberty Bell quarterback's hands as he tries to retreat away from the TAD defense.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
TAD manager Danny McAuley has done an outstanding job taking care of the Jr. Cyclones this season.
BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR SPORTS EDITOR
For those familiar with the music of Jim Croce, one of Croce’s songs was called Bad Bad Leroy Brown and in the lyrics of the song were two lines that read ‘Badder than old King Kong And meaner than a junkyard dog’.
Those words could probably be applied to the way the T.A. Dugger Jr. High Cyclones closed out the home portion of their 2019 football season on 8th Grade Night at Citizens Bank Stadium Thursday night as the Jr. Cyclones were pouncing on the Patriots of Liberty Bell like a pack of wild dogs to take a 21-0 win.
One player that had a King Kong night was defensive lineman Seth Campbell who had at least one fumble recovery and pulled down a batted ball for a two-yard pick-six score for the Jr. Cyclones first touchdown of the night.
Caleb Campbell’s point-after made it 7-0 with 6:04 left before the half.
The Jr. Cyclones left at least one and possibly two scores on the field due to costly mistakes in the first half or the score could have been a whole lot worse.
T.A. Dugger got their second score of the night in the third quarter when quarterback Gib Maupin rolled out and hit Jeremiah Norris for a 37-yard scoring toss where Norris did a lot of extra work to reach the end zone.
Campbell was true on the PAT and the Jr. Cyclones led 14-0 with four minutes left on the third-quarter clock.
The final score came in the final quarter when Zeth Mullins rolled to the left of the Jr. Cyclone offensive line and made a pretty dive for the front pylon of the end zone to garner the score.
Campbell remained perfect on the night in PAT’s and the TAD lead increased to 21-0.
While the offense was taking care of business, the defense was in the facemask of the offense as the Jr. Cyclone defense played stellar in holding the Patriots to very few yards offensively and created several turnovers and missed out on at least two more.
“Defensively, we have played so much better the last couple of weeks because they are understanding defense and it shows,” said head coach Brock Pittman. “Offensively, they made it hard on us by loading the box up making it hard to run the football.
“We formationed them a little bit and got them unbalanced and it was really just effort by the kids. You saw #15 (Norris) breaking tackles – just effort plays. Overall it was just a great win on 8th Grade Night. You couldn’t ask much more than that.”
The Jr. Cyclones will play at Vance in Bristol next Thursday evening at 6 pm.
