Bears top Mustangs

By JERRY SCOTT/Staff

Even though the final outcome wasn’t decided until the final seconds were ticking away, Bland County’s Bears can boast that the critical mistakes that plagued the team in its loss to Holston the week before, were nowhere to be seen last week against Eastern Montgomery.
Again, by getting an outstanding defensive effort, Bland County was able to knock the Mustang from the ranks of the unbeaten by squeezing out a thrilling 22-19 win over the Mustangs in Shawsville last Friday night. Bland County improved to 3-1 with the win with EastMont’s ledger sinking to 3-1 with the loss.
Even an offense that struggled miserably against Holston found itself jump-started in this one, albeit waiting until the fourth quarter to really get going. Touchdown catches from Dakotah Crouse and Kyle Kennedy in the fourth period turned a 19-7 Bland County deficit into the win.
Bears’ junior Josh Shrader again turned in a solid effort for Bland County. He hit eight of his 17 passes for 104 yards, the only blemish being two interceptions picked off in the Mustangs’ secondary.
Shrader also rushed for 61 yards on 19 carries and his little 6-yard screen pass to Kennedy with 51 seconds left in the game provided the winning points for the Bears. Shrader performed well despite a broken finger suffered in practice and a gimpy ankle injured during the game.
The Bears fell behind early, trailing 6-0 with 9:23 remaining in the first stanza after the Mustangs took the opening possession of the game 59 yards in five plays. EastMont quarterback Jeremy Smith’s dropped a slant pass into the hands of freshman Shawn Christian, who sprinted 42 yards for the quick score.
Shrader threw his second interception of the season to kill Bland County’s first possession and a return of 24 yards gave the Mustangs the ball back at their own 25-yard line. A 9-play drive to Bland County’s 48 ensued before EastMont turned the ball over on downs.
Unable to move the ball, the Bears went three-and-out but when Bland County’s Ethan Jones recovered a Christian fumble five plays later at the Mustangs’ 36, the Bears quickly seized the opportunity to get on the board.
Shrader had a nice 15-yard run from the EM30 on second down and added a 12-yard pass completion to Josh Pennington on fourth-and-10 from the 15 that helped keep the drive alive. Shrader bolted in from three yards out on third down, his seventh touchdown of the season coupled with Crouse’s PAT kick at the 5:56 mark of the first half pushing the Bears out to a 7-6 advantage.
EastMont rebounded by taking the ensuing possession for its second touchdown, which came with 1:33 left on a 4-yard run by Smith on the quarterback keeper. The score climaxed a drive of 10 plays and 55 yards, a drive that survived largely on a 10-yard run by Smith on third-and-one from the Bears’ 26 and provided the Mustangs a 13-7 lead.
Bland County was driving in the waning moments of the half, only to be stalled by a great series of defensive plays by the Mustangs. Bland County was looking at first-and-10 from the EM16 but the Mustangs registered sacks by Travis Cook, Dustin Guirreri, and George Shorter on three of the next four plays, driving the Bears back to the EastMont 40-yard line with six seconds remaining.
Bland County punted away the opening possession of the second half and the Mustangs missed a golden opportunity to score after their first drive of the second half was squelched on downs at the BC23. The drive began as the Mustangs were awarded a 15-yard facemask flag on the Bears on the punt return and was sustained by quality rushing by the EastMont duo of Chad Raines and Patrick Byrd.
Raines finished with a game-high 120 yards on 19 carries for the Mustangs and Byrd picked up 25 yards on 10 totes out of his fullback slot. Byrd also added an EastMont touchdown, scoring from one yard out on the second play of the fourth period as the Mustangs saw their lead swell to 19-7.
That drive was 49 yards and came following Shrader’s second interception of the game. A big bulk of the yards came on a 45-yard dash by Raines on second down that spotted the ball at the Bland County 5.
Seemingly unfazed, Bland County bounced right back and promptly marched 70 yards in five plays to close to within 19-14. Dylan Kidd’s 8-yard kickoff return gave the Bears good field position at the BC30 to get the drive ignited.
Adam Kirk picked up 14 yards to move the ball to the 44 and Shrader broke a slew of tackles to gain 28 yards to the EastMont 28. Crouse’s only rush of the game then had the Bears facing-second-and-three from the 21 moments before Korey Kennedy netted four yards to the 17.
Shrader then hooked up with Crouse on the EastMont sideline inside the five and the senior spun loose from a would-be tackler, falling into the end zone at the 9:26 mark of the game. His PAT kick suddenly made it a five-point ballgame.
Bland County got the ball back seven plays into the ensuing EastMont possession when Pennington intercepted Smith at the Bears’ 33-yard line. Shrader-to-Pennington for 17 yards on first down got the Bears to midfield and Shrader later connected with Nick Leighton, who had dropped two passes earlier in the game, for a 10-yard gain to the EM30.
Kyle Kennedy’s run of eight yards got the ball to the 22 and Shrader added a second down run of nine yards to the 11. Following a loss of one yard to the 12, Shrader picked up six to the EM6. After a Bears’ timeout, Shrader dropped a short screen over the EastMont defense to a wide-open Kennedy for the go-ahead touchdown with 51 seconds to go.
This gave the Mustangs one final chance to rally and following Henry Hall’s 19-yard kickoff return, EastMont was looking at a long 65 yards in a short period of time. The Mustangs fell short, however, and the win was punctuated following a hard hit by Korey Kennedy on Demetruis Murphy near midfield following his 14-yard pass reception.
Kennedy gave new meaning to the term ‘slobberknocker’ as he drilled Murphy, a hit that would send the Mustangs’ receiver to Lewis-Gale Hospital in Salem with unknown injuries. Following a short pass play to Christian, Smith threw back-to-back incompletions before Jones sealed the win with a backfield sack as time expired.
In addition to Shrader’s 61 rushing yards, the Bears got 34 yards from Korey Kennedy and 30 from Kirk. Pennington caught four passes for 57 yards. The Bears accumulated 240 total yards, including 136 rushing.
Eastern Montgomery netted 288 total yards, 204 coming via the rush. Smith completed seven of 15 passes for 84 yards with Christian snaring five balls for 69 yards.
Defensively for the Bears, several players turned in very good efforts. Kyle Kennedy netted eight assists en route to collecting a team-high 10 tackles. Jones, with four solo tackles, and Korey Kennedy and Kristopher Kennedy each added nine tackles. B. J. Gibson finished with eight total tackles.
Eastern Montgomery coach Mark Poston declined to comment after the game but Bland County’s Harris Hart was relieved that his club was able to bounce back in the fashion it did following the setback at Holston and then falling behind by a pair of touchdowns in this one.
“This win is going to help us a lot,” Hart said. “When you get down like we did and be able to come back shows a lot of character against what I think was a pretty dag-gone good football team. In the second half we were able to step it up physically and that’s what we’ve been working on in practice. I believe we grew up a little bit tonight and that’s what we’ve been hoping for.”
The Bears get back at it this coming Friday by returning home to take on a hapless Craig County squad that is really seeing some hard times. The Rockets, following last week’s 53-0 loss at the hands of Auburn, enter the game at 0-4 and have been outscored by a score of 100-0 over their past two games.

Bland County 0 7 0 15—22
Eastern Montgomery 6 7 0 6—19

SCORING—
First quarter
EM—Christian 42 pass from J. Smith (kick failed) 9:23
Second quarter
BC—Shrader 3 run (Crouse kick) 5:56
EM—J. Smith 4 run (Christian kick) 1:33
Fourth quarter
EM—Byrd 1 run (kick failed) 11:17
BC—Crouse 17 pass from Shrader (Crouse kick) 9:26
BC—Ky. Kennedy 6 pass from Shrader (Ky. Kennedy pass from Shrader):51

TEAM STATISTICS—
BC EM
First downs 14 14
Rushes/yds 37/136 46/204
Comp/Att/Int 8/17/2 7/16/1
Passing yds 104 84
Returns/yds 5/58 8/99
Penalties/yds 7/50 9/40
Fumbles/lost 0/0 2/1
Punts/avg yds 3/40.3 1/34.0

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS—
Rushing:
Bland County—Shrader 19/61, Ko. Kennedy 10/34, Kirk 5/30, Ky. Kennedy 1/8, Crouse 1/7, Kr. Kennedy 1/-4. Eastern Montgomery—Raines 19/120, J. Smith 15/56, Byrd 10/25, Christian 2/3.
Passing:
Bland County—Shrader 8/17/2, 104 yds. Eastern Montgomery—J. Smith 7/15/1, 84 yds., Hall 0/1/0, 0 yds., Christian 0/0/0, 0 yds.
Receiving:
Bland County—Pennington 4/57, Crouse 1/17, Kr. Kennedy 1/14, Leighton 1/10, Ky. Kennedy 1/6. Eastern Montgomery—Christian 5/69, Murphy 1/14, Wooten 1/1.