Running game keys win over Blue Raiders
August 26, 2014
Evensville, TN — Working on a short timetable the Rhea Middle Football team took on Cleveland on Tuesday. The competition began with Junior Varsity game at 5:30, followed by Varsity.
The Junior Varsity spotted Cleveland a couple of scores early but came back on the strength of some long runs by Bo Garmany and were tied at 20-20 late before losing on a late score by Cleveland.
The Varsity game was all Rhea County. After a big kickoff return, quarterback Zack Pemberton got the Eagles on the board, and they were off and flying. They continued to play well on their way to 18-0 halftime lead and eventual 34-8 final margin. The running backs were very effective in this game with Davis, Morrison and Solomon all playing well.
“I knew they would be big and physical and athletic like Robertsville was. I challenged our kids this week. Cleveland doesn’t care that you beat Robertsville. You got to come with that same intensity and same understanding. Good teams have to do it again and again and again,” said Coach Jeremy Fitzgerald.
“We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for them. I thought our kids absorbed pretty well what we talked about yesterday and today. Our kids came ready to play, and played hard. We caused some turnovers, which helped. Our kids understand that we need to play like that every week to win.”
“This was kind of a gauntlet week. Went from Robertsville on Thursday to Cleveland tonight. We will have one day to recover tomorrow, then we go to Spring City.”
“Morrison in the second half, played a really good game on both sides of the ball. he came to play on defense. He played that outside linebacker well against the spread offense. He told Coach Rodda, ‘they are not gonna tackle me’. As you could see with helmets flying off and everything else. They couldn’t get him down. That’s the mindset these kids have.”
“We got off to a good start. We had good punt and kickoff returns. We were able to beat a really good Cleveland football team.”
Next game for Rhea Middle will be at Spring City on Thursday at 7 pm.
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