CLINTON— The Elizabethton Cyclones were hoping to take what they had learned from their last encounter with the Anderson County Mavericks and use it to their advantage in the second round of the TSSAA football playoffs played at the Bull Ring in Clinton.

Unfortunately for the Cyclones, the state’s number-two ranked Mavericks were kicking up their heels early and often building a big 33-7 halftime lead and finished off Elizabethton in the second half to win going away 54-21.

Too much offensive power

Coming into the contest, the biggest concern the Cyclones had was the leadership of quarterback Stanton Martin and his strong arm.

However, the Mavericks game plan from the onset was to pound the football down the Cyclones’ throat and pound they did with the power running of Ryan Moog who accounted for four of Anderson County’s scores with three coming on the ground and one through the air.

Moog had scoring runs of 37, 5, and 42 yards while his receiving touchdown covered 12 yards. The bull rusher toted the football 21 times for 235 yards in the contest.

Stanton did his thing as well finishing the contest with four scoring passes in a highly efficient Maverick offense. Overall, the senior signal caller was 14-of-20 for 201 yards.

Battling the

injury bug

While the Mavericks were rolling, the Cyclones were doing all they could to fill the roles of significant starters who went down over the course of the contest.

Senior quarterback Carter Everett went down in the Cyclones second series with a back injury while senior defensive lineman Gabe DePrimo and Jared Grindstaff suffered injuries as well.

DePrimo managed to come back into the game but was limited after the injury.

Russell closes out career under center

When Everett went down, senior Corey Russell was called upon and did all he could to keep the Cyclones competitive as Russell tossed three scoring passes to sophomore Parker Hughes to account for all three of the Cyclone scores in the game.

The scoring passes covered 37, 26, and 29 yards to Hughes.

For the game, Russell finished 10-of-19 passing for 168 yards and the three scores. He also had two passes picked off. On top of that, one of the most prolific players in Cyclones history added 27 rushes for 123 yards.

Never quit Cyclones

Once again, the Cyclones exhibited the drive to finish the contest regardless of the score as the orange and black fought to the end to represent the Elizabethton community like they have so many times in the past.

That starts with head coach Shawn Witten who instills that into his team on a daily basis that attitude and once again that carried out to the very end of the 2018 campaign.

Game was like the semifinals for Class 4-A

This year’s game was much like last year’s contest as Anderson County, and Elizabethton came into the match ranked 2nd and 3rd in the state, and for all intents and purposes, this was a semifinal game in the state.

Next week will more than likely determine which team will come out on top in Class 4-A as Greeneville and Anderson County will square off in Clinton in what should be a high-scoring affair.