Cloudland
forces six turnovers in victory
By Wes Holtsclaw
STAR CORRESPONDENT
wholtsclaw@starhq.com
GREENBACK - The Cloudland Highlanders passed
their first major test of the TSSAA 1-A Playoffs.
Backed behind four interceptions and two fumble
recoveries, the Highlander defense shut down the Greenback
offense for the majority of the night en route to a 22-7 victory
in the quarterfinals.
Cole Gouge and Mark Byrd picked off two passes
for Cloudland, while Byrd and Mark Barnett added fumble recoveries.
"It was something Brewer and the coaches worked
with us this week," said Byrd. "The coaches do great, they
put us in a position to make more plays, so we just went out
and did it."
"It made me nervous going out there to play,"
said Gouge. "But I knew that I had to go out there and play
as hard as I could. We worked all week on trying not to give
up the big plays to them, and we did a pretty good job of
shutting them down."
Greenback quarterback Austin James was a mediocre
15-of-37 passing the football, thanks to tip-top execution
by the Highlander secondary.
"We had a good week of practice this week," said
Cloudland defensive coordinator Darrell Brewer. "It took us
all year to finally come together, and now we're peaking at
the right time.
"They played an extraordinary game. Cole stepped
up big tonight, and we just made some big plays on the ball."
Turnovers seemed to plague Greenback, who could
never click offensively and turn the momentum with constant
plays from the Highlanders.
"All of the kids played really hard," said Greenback
coach Bill Satterfield. "Some mistakes hurt us, but we battled
all night long. After Cloudland came out and scored two on
us, it would've been easy to fold it but we bounced back."
"We played hard, but Cloudland is tough. They
ran it right at us all night. It just took our kids some time
to get settled."
It was a tough contest for the sophomore quarterback
James, as his four picks allowed Cloudland to take some time
off of the clock.
"We played our hearts out," said James. "We just
came short. We had a good season. It's just tough to see it
end."
The Highlanders put a good amount of pressure
on the quarterback, including three big sacks from Dale Baker.
But Baker believes the Cloudland defense can still improve.
"We still need to work a little harder," said
Baker. "We've got a tough challenge this next week."
The contest became very tight in the third quarter
after a nice touchdown pass from the 'Kees. But a big 39-yard
touchdown run of jukes and jives from Byrd put the game out
of reach late.
"The line did a good job of blocking," Byrd said.
"(Mark) Barnett and (Dakota) Benfield just seemed to kick
out a little bit and started dancing with them, I just came
and split them up the middle."
Cloudland will now face its biggest threat of
the season in Chattanooga's Boyd-Buchanan.
The private school has played one of the toughest
schedules in 1-A this year, losing its only contest to Ezell-Harding
earlier this season.
The Buccaneers are led by Mr. Football nominee
Will Healy, who set a list of Chattanooga passing records
this past year. Boyd also has a sound rushing game behind
William Nelson, as its balanced attack has been a handful
for a lot of teams this year.
Byrd knows that it will be a challenge on the
road.
"We've just got to continue to play good defense,
and keep playing Highlander football."
GAME NOTES:
- The Cloudland/Boyd-Buchanan contest might not
take place at Boyd-Buchanan after all this Friday night as
it has been rumored that the game will take place at Finley
Stadium on the campus of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga
because of the poor field at the Boyd school.
The stadium has a grass surface, and is a new
modernized facility that seats over 20,000 people. As it is
just a rumor, we will have conformation on this as soon as
we hear something.
- Cloudland lost their only previous game to
Boyd-Buchanan in 1998 with a 38-22 loss in the first round.
- It was Cloudland's first playoff win on the
road at Greenback after losing the previous two in 1992 and
1994.
