Although the East Ridge offense provided the early momentum toward a potential third straight win, it was on defense that the Pioneers slammed the door on a late Soddy-Daisy rally.
After jumping out to a 14-0 first-half lead Friday night at home, the Pioneers needed a stout defensive effort in the second half to hold on for a 14-8 Region 3-4A win that keeps their playoff hopes alive.
"We have grown up defensively," said East Ridge coach Chad Barger, whose team has overcome an 0-5 start to the season. "The first few games of the year, people ran through us pretty easy, but it's been a process of learning a new system and our kids stayed with it and are playing some pretty good football.
"This group of kids is resilient. We've seen some growth and maturity over these past few weeks, and now we've set ourselves up to where if we can win one of our last two games, we'll be in the playoffs."
(READ MORE: Final scores and photos from Friday night's Chattanooga-area prep football games)
East Ridge (3-5, 2-2), which will be off next week then travel to region foe Sequoyah before closing the regular season against Hixson, was sharp on its opening possession, highlighted by a 50-yard pass from Jermaine Blackstock to Tyreke Wise-Bridges and capped by a 3-yard touchdown run by Blackstock, who added a 4-yard scoring run early in the second quarter for a 14-0 advantage.
"We can be knuckleheads sometimes and make some mistakes, but we were able to make enough plays to get the win," Blackstock said. "Every week has been a playoff week for us for a while now, because after a rough start to the season, we knew we had to win the rest of our region games.
"We just show up ready to compete every week."
The Trojans (2-6, 1-4) closed within 14-8 just before halftime on a 4-yard touchdown run by Tucker Ross, and the 2-point conversion was added by Gage Welch.
The Pioneers had multiple chances to put the game away in the second half but lost one fumble at the Soddy-Daisy 5-yard line and another at the Trojans' 10.
However, the East Ridge defense allowed just three second-half first downs, held Soddy-Daisy on fourth down at midfield late in the fourth quarter and forced two turnovers, including an interception by Bridges at the East Ridge 40 with 1:03 remaining to seal the win.
"I just dropped back into my zone and watched the quarterback's eyes to see where he wanted to go with it, broke on the ball and picked it off," Bridges said. "These last few games, we just said we're not ready to be done yet. We want to go to the playoffs. We knew we had to beat them to do it, so we just did everything we could to make that happen."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com.