Cougars defeat White County High School Warriors in final game

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By Jerry Lowery

The traveling Goodpasture Cougars entered Warrior Stadium with up-set on their minds on Friday night.

It was senior night for the Warriors, and their final game of the season.  Due to pulling out of the TSSAA region system, the Warriors were not eligible for postseason play this year, so this was the final game of the season.  The Warriors’ record heading into the contest was 5-4.  Good-pasture’s record was 3-6.

Goodpasture took the opening kickoff and moved down the field for 10 plays, and, on a fourth down and eight yards to go, they rolled the dice and went for the first down.  The Warrior defense stopped them and took over on downs.  Both teams traded punts as the offense could not get going.  The Cougars scored first on a nine-play drive when they scored on an 18-yard touchdown pass. The extra point was good, and, at the 6:29 mark in the first quarter, Goodpasture led 7-0.

It did not take the Warriors long to answer as they moved down on two plays when Malachai Dowell broke free, eluded tacklers, and sprinted 37 yards to paydirt.  The Warriors went for two on a Will Griggs run and was successful.  The Warriors took the lead 8-7.

Dowell again came up big on defense by intercepting the Cougar pass and giving the Warriors the ball back,, leading by one.  Sparta fumbled the ball, and Goodpasture recovered to take over on offense.  Goodpas-ture put up a 14-play drive that ended in a 36-yard field goal attempt, which was good, with 17.3 seconds to play in the first half.

Goodpasture led at the half 10-8.

Sparta opened the second half with the ball and a good drive moving down the field.  On the 11th play of the drive, Sparta was facing a sec-ond down and 16 yards to go for a first down.  The Warrior pass was in-tercepted and returned to midfield.  Goodpasture could not move the ball on the Warrior defense, and the Cougars were stopped on a fourth down and two.  The Warriors moved the ball down to the Cougar 15- yard line and, on a fourth and five, attempted a 32-yard field goal. Will Cheek hit the field goal, and Sparta took the lead 11-10, with 14.7 sec-onds left in the third quarter.

The fourth quarter was all Goodpasture.  They scored at the 10:09 mark in the fourth quarter on an 11-yard run.  The two-point conversion was good, and the Cougars extended the lead 18-11.  On a fake punt, the Warriors fell short of the first down, giving Goodpasture the ball back with good field position.  With 3:15 to play, Goodpasture ended a nine-play drive that ended in a 30-yard field goal.  The score with 3:15 to play was 21-11.  Sparta took the ball, and, on a fourth down and eight yards to go for a first, the Warrior pass was intercepted and returned 60 yards for a Goodpasture touchdown.  The extra point was no good, and the Cougars extended the lead over the Warriors 27-11.

The Warriors could not move the ball, and Goodpasture took posses-sion of the ball on the Warrior seven-yard line and took a knee to end the game.  The Warriors ended their season at 5-5.  Goodpasture moved to 4-6 on the season.

Stats for the game have Jayden Richmond with 17 carries and 89 yards. Malachi Dowell had seven carries for 65 yards and a touchdown.  D.J. Paul had two carries for 16 yards.  Sydreck Leftwich had seven carries for 10 yards, and Will Cheek had one carry for minus one yard.  Left-wich went foir for 12 for 20 yards and two interceptions.  Cheek passed one time for three yards, and Paul passed one time for 15 yards.  Goodpasture ended the game with 124 yards rushing and 178 yards passing for a total offensive output of 302 yards.  The Warriors ended the night with 180 rushing yards and 38 passing yards for a total of 218 offensive yards.

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