11/19/19
Wildcats Eliminate Tigers

The Wildcats won the toss and deferred possession to the second half so Claxton would get the ball first. A short kickoff preventing a Tiger return would give the Tigers the ball at their own 35 yard line.  The first play from scrimmage was a 65 yard touchdown pass from Hayden Morris to Karon Taylor to give the Tigers the quick lead.  Jorge Gonzalez would connect on the extra point to put Claxton up 7-0 with just 20 seconds into the game. 

Both teams would go back and forth until Schley County drove inside the Claxton red zone where the Wildcats would throw a pass and have it deflected by Shakari Denson and intercepted by Johnafar Carter to end the drive. 

The Tigers would find it hard to run on the stout Schley County defense, led by 4 Star recruit Zykevivous Walker.  Martin Hernandez would punt a career long 60 yarder to flip field position. 

The Wildcats would use the physicality of the offensive line to score on back-to- back drives to take a 15-7 lead in the second quarter.  The Tigers would pounce back as Morris would hit Taylor again on 35 yard scoring strike to get within two points.  Coach Tony Welch would decide to chase the two pints and was successful as Morris completed the two point conversion to Denson to tie the game at 15-15 with under five minutes remaining in the half. 

The Wildcats would drive the ball with their physical running game and score a late half touchdown and covert the two point conversion to take a 23-15 lead into halftime. 

 

The Tigers would kick off to the Wildcats to start the third quarter and Jorge Gonzalez would deliver a perfect onside kick and the Tigers would steal a possession.  The possession would turn into zero points for the Tigers as the punt was blocked and recovered by Schley County.  Several plays later the Wildcats would throw a rare pass and connect for a touchdown and also made the two point conversion for a 31-15 lead with 10:00 minutes remaining in the third period. 

An electric return by Denson would give the Tigers great field position and the Tigers would settle for a Gonzalez 26 field goal to cut into the lead 31-18 with 8:44 remaining in the third.

The Wildcats would go on a six minute drive but would fumble at the Tiger 12 yard line.  Four plays later, the Wildcats would block their second punt in a row for a touchdown to take a 37 -18 lead into the fourth period. The Tigers would fight to the end as Morris connected with Denson on the last play of the game on a touchdown pass to make the score 46-24.

During Coach Welch’s’ post game speech, he thanked the seniors for all their hard work and congratulated the team for making the playoffs for the second year in a row. 

The Tigers show a lot of promise going into the offseason and will have a lot of returners for next year’s team. For the season, Claxton finished 6-5.