Making it official… North Greene takes advantage of Unaka miscues to pull away late, 32-20
Published 12:56 am Tuesday, August 27, 2019
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Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
A North Greene defender gets a handful of Unaka running back Logan Benway's mask. The play drew a 15-yard facemask penalty.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Logan Benway of Unaka looks for a running lane in the Rangers game against North Greene on Monday in Baileyton.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Unaka's Drew Smith wraps up the North Greene quarterback.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Unaka quarterback Daniel Shearl looks downfield for an open receiver while being pressured by a pair of Huskie defenders.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Unaka's Drew Smith wraps up the North Greene quarterback.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Logan Benway of Unaka looks for a running lane in the Rangers game against North Greene on Monday in Baileyton.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Unaka quarterback Daniel Shearl looks downfield for an open receiver while being pressured by a pair of Huskie defenders.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
A North Greene defender gets a handful of Unaka running back Logan Benway's mask. The play drew a 15-yard facemask penalty.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Unaka's Daniel Shearl attempts to turn the corner while being chased by a North Greene defender.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
The Ranger defense led by Nathaniel Oakes (60) pursues the Huskie running back.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Logan Benway tries to cut the ball back into the middle of the field in Monday's contest in Baileyton.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Ranger quarterback Landon Ramsey gets ready to throw a pass downfield.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders
Unaka's Austin Drew attempts to elude the pressure of the North Greene tackler.
BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR SPORTS EDITOR
BAILEYTON – When the skies opened and the lightning began to flash, little did the Unaka Rangers and North Greene Huskies expect to be playing only one half of football on Monday to determine who would pick up their first win of the season.
But after three inches of rain fell and creeks flooded on Friday, that was the exact scenario both teams faced as the Rangers had to make the drive back to Baileyton on Monday to see if they might have a solution to come back from a 12-8 deficit they left on Friday.
Unfortunately for the boys from Stoney Creek, miscues early quickly escalated to a lead for the Huskies that just couldn’t be overcome as North Greene took the win 32-20.
It looked promising in the first possession of the second half as the Rangers pushed North Greene back to their own 38-yard line to set up a fourth and 25. However, on the punt, the ball was mishandled by Devin Ramsey with the Huskies getting new life on the Unaka 25-yard line.
Three plays later, Tyler Sanchez rumbled into the end zone on an 18-yard run to make it an 18-8 game after the two-point conversion failed with 6:25 showing on the third-quarter clock.
Unaka ran into bad luck again on the ensuing possession as on a third and 11, Daniel Shearl had his pass intercepted to stop the drive.
The Rangers did manage to make a great defensive stand to force the Huskies to punt the ball back as Austin Drew made a fair catch at the Unaka 30-yard line.
Unaka embarked on a nine-play drive that carried over into the fourth quarter and ended when Shearl found Nick Bowers open in the end zone for a 10-yard touchdown pass. The two-point conversion was no good and the Rangers were well within striking distance.
The defense made another great stand for Unaka forcing a three and out to get an opportunity to take the lead with a score.
Unaka took over the ball on their own 15-yard line and started to move the football before the Rangers made another costly mistake when on first down Shearl was picked off by a Huskie defensive back for a 35-yard pick-six that extended the lead back to 24-14 with under four minutes to play in the game.
After North Greene forced the Rangers into a turnover on a fourth and 13, Ethan Atnip was able to reel in a 29-yard touchdown pass and then complete the two-point conversion to give the home team a comfortable 32-14 lead with 2:05 left to play.
Unaka, however, wasn’t about to fold their tents as head coach O’Brien Bennett called on Landon Ramsey to take over for Shearl and split Shearl out as another receiving threat.
Ramsey started to make a connection with the Ranger receivers as he finally got the ball into the hands of Logan Benway who was off to the races for a 43-yard touchdown reception with 43.6 seconds left to play to make it 32-20 after the conversion failed.
The Rangers recovered the onside kick but ran out of time before they could stick the ball across the goal line again.
“That’s where it comes down to me,” said Bennett about the frustrations Unaka experienced because of the miscues. “I told the kids that was my fault where we don’t come into a football game mentally prepared that falls on me.
“It’s my job to get 15, 16, 17-year-old kids ready to play a ball game and ready to win a football game. Despite the fact that we played it on two different days, none of that matters because they played it on two different days too.
“We can walk out of here with a hand full of excuses or we can come to work all week and get better and win one at home against Cosby this week,” Bennett continued. “We have a short week and what I told them is we can’t let one loss turn into two.
“Ultimately we turned the football over five times and didn’t get any back so when you are negative five in turnovers you don’t win too many football games.”
Unaka plays host to Cosby at 7:30 pm on Friday night.
