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BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR SPORTS EDITOR
ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com
After suffering their first loss of the season last week to South Greene, don’t look for the Hampton Bulldogs to simply lay down and roll over on the rest of the season as Coach Michael Lunsford and his team take to the road and visit Gatlinburg-Pittman for another challenging week on the gridiron.

Hampton came up on the short end of the stick in a showdown with South Greene 28-22 in which a controversial missed horse-collar tackle on ‘Dog quarterback Conor Jones could have been a turning point in the contest.

The ‘Dogs had the football with time running down but just couldn’t punch the ball across the goal line to cap off the comeback.

Now Hampton must face off with a Highlander team whose record isn’t so sparkling at 3-3 overall but once a deeper dive is made, one can see that the strength of schedule for the ‘Landers hasn’t been one that has been too favorable.

The ‘Landers has lost to Class 3A Loudon who is ranked number three in the state this week by a 43-22 score.  Class 3-A top-ranked Alcoa also took care of Gat-Pitt by a 56-7 final.

Finally, Class 4A Seymour skimmed past the Highlanders by a 14-13 score to account for the three losses.

Hampton had been sailing along during the first half of the season maintaining a state ranking of third in Class 2-A but Friday night’s loss stung much deeper as the loss put the Rebels in the driver’s seat for the region one game ahead of the Bulldogs.

The ‘Dogs can’t let the loss distract them as they need to finish out the regular season and hold onto at least one home game in the playoffs.

Conor Jones leads the ‘Dogs into battle as the quarterback did all he could last week to push his team to the win and the ‘Dogs enjoyed having senior Morgan Lyons back for his first regular-season game after breaking an ankle.

Look for Hampton to come out ready, willing, and able to take care of business against the Highlanders to get back in the win column.