SPORTS

Shut ‘em down: TCA’s Garrott challenged every week by top receivers

Brandon Shields

Trinity Christian Academy senior cornerback Tyler Garrott has had some tough assignments this year.

Some of the opposing receivers he’s been assigned to cover include Adamsville’s Ross Burcham, University School of Jackson’s Johnathan Adkins, South Gibson’s Airan Reed and Jackson Central-Merry’s Jalen Marshall. All are taller than Garrott. Marshall has enough speed to compete for track championships. Burcham has been one of the most productive receivers in the area the past three years, and Reed is one of the most athletic players opposing coaches gameplan for. Adkins is in his first year of playing football and already showing ability in his senior year with the Bruins.

“It was tough covering all of those guys because they bring different skill sets to the game,” Garrott said. “But I practice against some good receivers who have different skill sets with Landon [Ross], Grant [Reviere] and everybody else we have on this team.”

Garrott stands at 5-feet-8-inches. That’s caused some teams to try to pick on him because of an obvious physical mismatch, but Garrott has made some of those teams pay. The first time he made someone pay was the regular season game last year against Adamsville when he had two interceptions in a TCA 28-21 win.

“I guess they see that it looks like I’m a foot shorter than [Burcham], and I shouldn’t be able to go up and get the ball,” Garrott said. “But I was blessed that night.”

The Garrott-Burcham matchup was another important one in their matchup earlier this year, once again a TCA win 49-42. The Cardinals went to Burcham a few times in the second half when trying to come back and tie the game.

There were a couple of instances in which Garrott was penalized with pass interference calls when the Cardinals went to Burcham on long touchdown pass tries. Garrott was greeted with praise from the coaches as he jogged back to line up for the next snap: “That’s OK! We’ll take 15 yards instead of giving them six points!”

“He’s not the biggest guy out there, but he’ll do what he needs to do to make a play, whether it’s getting an interception or just breaking up a pass,” said TCA head coach Blake Butler. “And he’s always been the model kid to do what we ask them to do every practice and every play: Do your job with perfect effort.

“That’s how he won the starting job at cornerback, because every time we looked up in practice, he was lined up where he needed to be and playing the position the way it needed to be played. We didn’t have to tell him anything twice.”

Garrott has played at least five positions so far for the Lions this season: weak safety, free safety, cornerback, receiver and holder on PATs.

“No matter where he plays, we know he’ll be that model player doing his job with perfect effort where he is,” Butler said. “And he will always play until the final horn no matter what the score is.”

Butler said that has never been exhibited better than at the end of last week’s 49-7 win over JCM. The final play of the game with TCA leading 43-7 and Garrott already with a fumble recovery returned for a touchdown, the receiver Garrott was covering caught a pass. Garrott hit his man and knocked the ball loose. Once again, he scooped the ball up and returned it 60 yards for a score.

“It would’ve been easy for him to say, ‘This game’s over. I’m going to take this play off,’” Butler said. “But I’m glad to know he won’t do that in a situation when the game is already won because we know he definitely won’t when the game is on the line.”

Brandon Shields, 425-9751

This week’s game

What: TCA at Jackson Christian

When: Friday at 7 p.m.

Radio: WDVW-FM 105.3; WWGM-FM 93.1