If it wasn’t a television timeout, it was a penalty or a clock malfunction. Whatever the case may have been, Smith County took it all in stride Friday at East Robertson.
The Owls made two big defensive plays late in the contest to secure a 14-7 victory and grab first place in the Region 4-2A race.
On East Robertson’s next-to-last possession following an Owl punt, the Smith County defense forced a fumble on the first play and recovered deep in Indian territory. A play later, freshman quarterback Riley Martin found Key Harris with 1:36 to play for the go-ahead score.
Then, with time winding down and facing a fourth down, Peyton Hix pulled down an interception to seal the victory and send the Owls back to Carthage with the opportunity to win the region should they take care of business the rest of the way.
The final 7:33 of the contest was played with time kept on the field after East Robertson’s scoreboard malfunctioned several times in the second half. That only added to the challenge of navigating a tightly contested game in the final minutes.
“All the stoppages, the (scoreboard) clock even not working, that was a big factor, having to ask for the time from the referee, there were a lot of flags in the game,” Hix said. “You’ve just got to fight through adversity to get the dub.”
Smith County also missed three field goals in the contest but was able to overcome those lost opportunities as well. After nearly 30 minutes with no points, Martin found Clayton Rigsby to put the Owls in front midway through the third quarter.
“You’ve got two extremely talented football teams just dogging each other, going at it,” Smith County head coach Matt Dyer said. “Scratching, clawing, bleeding all night. It was a weird game, there were a lot of time stoppages with the TV timeouts, incomplete passes, turnovers, and penalties. Our guys are very resilient in being able to sit there and weather that storm.”
East Robertson’s offense struggled to gain any traction, with the Indians’ lone score coming on a 12-yard run from Cade Brooks one play after the Owls turned it over on downs after a fake punt deep in their own territory early in the fourth quarter.
The Owls now control their own path toward a region title, with the defense having led the charge since giving up 28 points to Liberty Creek on Sept. 1. In the past three games, Smith County has allowed 20 points, though six of those came in a 6-3, overtime loss at Macon County for the Owls’ lone blemish this season.
“They’ve answered adversity so well in the past three years, this senior group,” Dyer said. “When they were sophomores coming in, we had the injury bug and were able to win six games, be second in the region. (Last year), they came up and were very experienced, but we had a few injuries at the end of the year and we lost to East Nashville in the quarterfinals.”
And with all the talk about East Robertson being a state contender, the Owls just waited in the shadows for their moment, and it came on Friday.
“I feel like we’re a tough team,” Hix said. “We’re a tough team to beat, we’re going to fight all four quarters. I mean, I’m ready to play Uppermna next week.”
“This year we’ve moved down a classification and we’re paired with East Robertson, who everybody had picked to be the favorite to win state and win the region,” Dyer said. “No one really gave us a chance to win this game, but that really didn’t affect our guys, because our guys have been battle-tested the past three years. We’ve played 4A teams, 3A teams – heck, Walker Valley being a 5A team – and we don’t shy away from competition. That helped us tonight, just being battle-tested.”