Strong Second Half Stampedes Longhorns over Vikings

Prior to Friday night’s contest between the Avery Vikings and Johnson County (TN) Longhorns, a bright rainbow shone over the landscape surrounding MacDonald Stadium. Unfortunately for the Big Red, it was the visitors from Mountain City who found the pot of gold in the form of a gridiron victory, handing Avery its fourth consecutive loss in a 27-14 final score.

The game started with a bang as Johnson County’s Brian Swayne took the opening kickoff 85 yards for an apparent touchdown. The score was negated due to a penalty, however, forcing the Longhorns to settle with beginning its first offensive series of the game at the Avery 30 yard line. The Big Red defense kept the Longhorns out of the end zone, so Johnson County all-everything senior athlete Christian Prudhomme scored the first points of the night with a 39-yard field goal for an early 3-0 lead.

Avery opened up the evening with a change of offense, as the wide open spread attack was replaced by a run-oriented single back offense formation featuring seldom used junior running back Ethan Sluder.

“Ethan was a heck of a runner last year. He hasn’t been running as hard as I expected him to do earlier in the season, but it seems like something just clicked in practice as he was running hard each and every practice the past week or so,” Coach Brewer said. “I told him that what he was showing us recently was what we expected out of him on Friday night and that he would have opportunities, and he did a heck of a job with the opportunities he had.”

The new offense was a promising change as Sluder ran for 83 yards on 16 carries to lead the team and the Vikings ran the ball with more effectiveness than at any point throughout the season. However, the offense was unable to reach its full potential on the evening as senior quarterback Adam Pate pulled his hamstring during a scramble on Avery’s fourth offensive play of the game, limiting his mobility and his effectiveness in rolling out of the pocket. Pate gutted out the injury for most of the contest, splitting snaps at times with backup Chris Childress and eventually sat out the closing minutes of the contest. Pate’s availability for Avery’s next game at Owen on September 26th is currently unknown.

“I felt like the offensive line did one of its best jobs all season in blocking, but we became really limited offensively when Adam got hurt. He had a hard time even getting back to make handoffs and we tried to use him in shotgun to help with the injury. It threw a big kink in what we wanted to do because we had tailored a lot of our offense during the week on his ability to roll out and throw on the run or carry the football,” Coach Brewer explained. “Adam wanted to stay in the game and I admire that he wanted to do that despite the pain he was in.”

In spite of the obvious setback to the Avery attack, the Big Red moved the football 49 yards on nine plays with its opening possession until the drive stalled at the JCHS 31-yard line. A long Avery field goal attempt floated a couple of yards short of the crossbar to give the football back
to the Longhorns.

Johnson County committed the first turnover of the contest shortly after regaining possession when quarterback Austin Phipps threw his first of three interceptions for the game, a ball picked off by Taylor Potter at the Avery 36-yard line.

With its newfound opportunity the Vikings offense capitalized as a drive aided by a pass interference penalty against the Longhorns moved inside the Johnson County 30. Two plays following the infraction Chase Arrowood used his brute strength to bull his way through a set of Longhorn tackle attempts for a 25-yard touchdown run. A Sutton Stanley extra point gave Avery a 7-3 lead with under a minute left in the opening quarter.

Another long kick return on the ensuing kickoff gave Johnson County excellent field position in Viking territory, where eight plays later the Longhorns regained the lead on the scoreboard at 10-7 with an Adam Shelton two-yard touchdown plunge and Prudhomme PAT.

Avery continued to show it was able to run the football on the Longhorn defense, driving inside the red zone to the Johnson County 17-yard line. Faced with a difficult fourth and short decision, Vikings head coach Darrell Brewer opted to attempt a 34-yard field goal which was wide right to quell the drive.

Johnson County quickly moved downfield in the half’s closing minutes, managing another Prudhomme field goal with under a minute remaining to increase the Longhorn lead to 13-7 at halftime.

Avery received the kickoff to begin the third quarter, but a fumble on the third play from scrimmage was recovered by the Longhorns, giving them field position inside the Vikings 30-yard line. Four plays later Johnson County was back in the end zone as Phipps fired a four-yard touchdown pass to Prudhomme, giving the Longhorns a commanding 20-7 lead.

The Vikings caught a break on its next series when they were forced to punt. Kick returner Prudhomme dropped the punt by Avery’s Dylan Aldridge, and Paul Townsend recovered the ball for the Big Red at the Johnson County 17-yard line. But, in a common theme throughout a large portion of the night, Avery could not score when it failed on a fourth down conversion attempt.

Johnson County committed turnovers on two of its next four offensive series, both by way of intercepted passes by Avery’s Chris Childress. The Longhorns were forced to punt on its other two drives. Much to the home crowd’s chagrin, the Vikings could not muster a serious scoring threat with its possession opportunities. Avery’s offense stalled for much of the second half and the team was forced to punt at the conclusion of three separate drives.

A final Longhorn touchdown came on a 46-yard touchdown pass from Phipps to wide receiver Ian Bellamy with 4:29 left in the game. Avery bounced back to answer the touchdown with one of its own as Childress, subbing for the injured Pate, scrambled 17 yards to cross the goal line. The Stanley extra point kick with only 58 seconds left in the contest closed out the scoring for the night as Avery dropped to 0-4 on the season.

“Johnson County wants to pound you on offense, but they weren’t able to do that against us. They hit a few long passes on us, but we didn’t let them do everything they wanted to do,” Coach Brewer said after the contest. “I feel like we’ve gotten better every week, and as long as we continue to do that I think we’ll be all right in conference play. Our team has a good attitude and we will not go winless this season. We’ll win some ballgames. We could have hung our heads against Johnson County, but we fought, we scraped, and clawed. I was proud of them for that.”

Avery has a bye this Friday night and returns to action on September 26th at Owen.