sevier county falls short in comeback bid

The Sevier County Smoky Bears found themselves in unfriendly territory Friday night at Halls High School.

The Smoky Bears traveled to once-upon-a-time Class 4A juggernaut Halls with hopes of collecting their first win of 2007. Instead, the Bears found themselves on the losing end of a 28-20 seesaw affair.

Both the Red Devils and the Smoky Bears boasts state championship banners won over the last 20 years. Halls won its title in 1986 while Sevier County claimed its spot in state high school football history by winning the Class 5A title in 1999.

It was the Bears, however, who appeared to have the better team during the opening quarter of play Friday night at Halls. But in the end, home-field-advantage proved more valuable than skill and depth as the improving Red Devils under head coach Kevin Julian, himself a member of the Halls’ 1986 state championship team, were nothing if not opportunistic in front of the frenzied home crowd on their way to the 28-20 non-region win.

Sevier County wasted no time establishing its offensive gameplan, as senior quarterback Taylor Helton hooked up with junior wideout Patrick Miller for a nice gain on Sevier County’s opening drive, giving the Red Devils’ defense a glimpse of what was to come.

On the other side of the ball, Halls’ first two offensive plays went for no gain and its third play from scrimmage went for negative yardage.

Sevier County’s second possession produced a loud roar from the well-represented visitors section when senior fullback Josh Carr crossed into paydirt from five-yards out to put the Smoky Bears on the board for the first time in the 2007 season.

Sevier County’s pesky defense disallowed Halls from gaining anything substantial on the Red Devils’ next offensive series.

Then everything went awry for the Smoky Bears as penalties would become the footing for the Sevier County loss.

A roughing the punter flag kept the aforementioned series alive, and as the first quarter ended, so did the Bears’ luck.

“Mistakes on the road or at home are going to hurt you,” said longtime SCHS head coach Steve Brewer of the Smoky Bears’ miscues.

The first significant flag of the game would be followed by many others as the evening sky gave way to darkness.

Halls’ quarterback Tyler Turner would then hit highly-touted wide receiver Daniel Dayton on a 26-yard slant route for a Red Devils’ touchdown to cap the same drive that had been extended by the questionable roughing the punter penalty.

The Red Devils would not trail in the game again.

Each team added another score before the half. The Halls’ score followed a Sevier County turnover, and the Bears scored on a Helton-to-Miller connection.

With the score knotted at 14, Sevier County’s offense began experiencing difficulties.

“What really hurt us was the third quarter when we came out with several three and outs in a row,” Brewer noted.

The Bears’ offense had become momentarily stagnant.

Meanwhile, Halls kept riding the wave of home-field advantage.

The Red Devils added a score with just under six minutes left in the third on a Kevin Waggoner run, making the tally 21-14 in favor of the home team.

Sevier County’s Tyler Thomas seemingly ended the Bears’ offensive drought with a deceptive 62-yard dash into the end zone on SCHS’s ensuing offensive series. His six broken tackles were all for not, however, when the referee announced that Sevier County had been ticketed for a chop-block way back at the line of scrimmage.

Thomas’s run would have tied the score at 21-21 but instead the Bears were back in formation facing a first and 20 situation.

Two plays later, as a result of the penalty and the extra yardage between Sevier County and the first down, Helton made his first big mistake of the evening.

Helton’s pass went wide of its mark and ended up in Halls’ defensive back Garrett Gresham’s hands. The Halls’ defender streaked 45 yards back for the touchdown, putting the Devils up by two touchdowns with 9:08 remaining.

The Bears created two substantial drives late in the fourth quarter, but only scored on the latter of the two.

Helton passed to Andrew Feezel with under ten seconds to go. In the last of the strangely handled series of events, the game was declared over with two seconds clearly remaining on the clock. Nonetheless, the Smoky Bears had opened the season winless in their first two games.

“We’re taking steps,” Brewer offered in the game’s aftermath. “We’re certainly not pleased with our start. I can’t remember the last time we started 0-2, but I told the team that we did a lot of good things tonight and we have to build on that.

“I thought our defense did a pretty good job of keeping us in the game in the fourth quarter,” the Bears’ coach continued.

“We saw some good things, but we have a relatively inexperienced team. We just have to stay together and I think we will get a little bit better each week. We have to get better next week for our first region game.”

Things won’t get any easier for Sevier County in the weeks to come. The Smoky Bears will come back to Sevierville next week to host Karns before hitting the road again for games against West and Science Hill. The next home game after Karns won’t be until September 28^th against the Seymour Eagles.