‘Landers to host Blue Devils
Published 11:42 am Tuesday, October 4, 2022
- Cloudland Highlanders head coach Zac Benfield
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STAR CORRESPONDENT
A battered Highlanders squad will take on 2A Unicoi County on Friday night at Orr Field. The ‘Landers has some nicks as they come off a 42-0 loss to West Greene in Mosheim.
“We are dealing with some adversity,” Highlanders head coach Zac Benfield said. “We did not play well last week and offensive execution has been tough. Unicoi County is fast, tough and their offensive linemen maintain their blocks well and open holes for Nehemiah Edwards to run through. They are well coached and coach Rice does a good job of preparing them.”
Edwards is on pace for a rare 2,000-yard rushing season and junior quarterback Ty Engle has the Blue Devils offense firing on all cylinders. Unicoi County is 5-1 overall and coming off a 34-20 conference loss to Chuckey-Doak, snapping a five-game win streak and the Devils are looking to rebound against Cloudland.
Senior Gage McKinney was held in check by the Buffaloes defense as he gained just 75 yards on 22 carries, well below his usual output and the ‘Landers offense was shut out for the first time this season.
McKinney comes off a 336-yard effort against conference foe Cosby when he earned his second Climate Controllers Player of the Week effort and has rushed for over 1,000 yards this season.
In 2022 the ‘Landers have struggled against 2A teams, dropping a 22-14 contest to Happy Valley and having losses to Hampton and Rockwood while winning both of their conference games with Unaka and Cosby.
“There’s not a million things were going to be able to throw at them,” Benfield said. “But we’ll try to find a handful of things we can do well and go with that. We played well against them last year and we’ll try to put our guys in a situation where we can be successful at the end of the game and give us a chance to win.”
Playing in a steady rain against West Greene hampered the ‘Landers offensively while West Greene seemed to thrive in the run game while Cloudland sputtered. Unicoi County got 175 yards rushing from Edwards in the loss to Chuckey-Doak and Engle completed 11-of-23 passes for 165 yards but had three interceptions against the Black Knights.
Edwards caught two passes for 91 yards, while senior tight end Lucas Slagle was held to one catch for 20 yards.
“We have to buckle down and put ourselves in a position to have some success,” Benfield said. “Unicoi does a good job and their scheme is to stretch the field and they do a good job of that. We’ll go with the kids that are here and get them ready to go.”
Game time is 7:30 pm.
