Wildcats stunned by Raiders during Homecoming
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Coffee County Middle came back to upset Tullahoma 16-14 on an intense game Tuesday night.
Tullahoma thought they were going to spoil Coffee County’s homecoming, but a 35-yard field goal from Giovanni Alcara Reyes with 11 seconds left gave the Red Raiders their first win of the season. The Wildcats were coming off of a tough contest in Pulaski against Bridgeforth where they lost 54-38, putting their three game winning streak to an end.
The ‘Cats were up 14-7 at the half over their cross-county rivals. Miscues and penalties for Tullahoma moved the ball backwards on their first drive of the half against Coffee County. After an illegal formation penalty on the punt moved the ball to the Tullahoma 9-yard line, Zion Jeffery was unable to get the punt off so he ran left and got the ball to the 16-yard line, the original starting point for the drive. The first play was a run for a loss of 2 yards. Then Coffee County ran left for a gain of 8 to make it third and 4. They ran a quarterback keeper in for a touchdown. The extra point was blocked by Landon Price, but a flag for jumping over an offensive lineman awarded a retry. The kick was blocked again by the Wildcats leaving the score at 14-13 with 3:29 left in the third quarter. Jeffery returned the kickoff to the Wildcats 44. A flag for a personal foul on the Red Raiders moved the ball across midfield to the Coffee County 41. The second drive of the half looked eerily similar to the first for Tullahoma as they faced a fourth and 19. They decided to go for it, Bradyn Scott threw a pass right to Jeffery on a go-route. He jumped over two Raider defenders and came down with the ball at the Coffee County 24 to pick up the first down. Scott fell on the ball after a fumbled snap, losing 4 yards and taking the game into the fourth quarter 14-13.
The Wildcats could not get the offense going on the rest of the drive, they lost a yard on second down and had an incomplete pass on third down. On fourth and 15 they ran a reverse to Jeffery, who looked like he was going to throw a pass to an open Landon Norwood over the middle but he was tackled at the 34-yard line before he could do anything with the ball. Coffee County had a successful run on their first play, but a penalty moved the ball backwards and made it second and long. They could not overcome the penalty and had to punt the ball. Jeffery returned the punt to the 47. Price got the ball on a jet sweep to begin the drive but the play lost 7 yards. The second down pass was incomplete. On third 17 Scott threw a swing pass to Jeffery who picked up a couple of blocks from the receivers on the left side, so he could carry the ball into Raider territory before being pushed out-of-bounds at the 39. Scott ran up the middle for a gain of 3, the Coffee County called their first timeout with 4:03 left. A flag on Tullahoma for holding brought the ball back to the 46. The Raiders called their second timeout with 3:52 remaining in regulation. Scott was sacked at the 50 on second down and an injury to a Wildcats stopped the clock at 3:41. On third and 21 the pass left to Price on a wheel route was incomplete stopping the clock again. The ‘Cats went for it on fourth and 21 with 3:14 left in the game, but the pass was incomplete. The Red Raiders took over at midfield with 3:08 on the clock and down 14-13. The quarterback ran for a gain of 11. He ran left for gain of 6 with 2:31 remaining with the clock running. A false start made it second and 9 with 2:21 left. The running back carried it left for 3 yards. The quarterback ran left to the 33, making it fourth and 4 with 1:00 minute reaming on the running clock. Coffee County took their last timeout with 55 seconds left. After the timeout they came out and ran a trick play and threw the ball to their quarterback to pick up the first down at the 27-yard line. He ran on the next play for a gain of 8 yards, but did not get out-of-bounds with 24 seconds left. They got lined up and spiked the ball with 16 seconds left. The Coffee County field goal unit came out, so Tullahoma called a timeout to ice the kicker. The Raiders unit ran a player off the field, leaving them with 10 players on the field according to the officials, and the kick was drilled to give the Red Raiders the 16-14 lead with 11 seconds left. On the kickoff they tried an onside and were able to recover with 7 seconds left to prevent any chance the Wildcats had of taking the lead back. Coffee County took a knee to secure their comeback victory on Homecoming night for their first win of the year. The loss gives Tullahoma a 4-3 record.
