JEFF JORDAN, Post Sports Editor
Posted: Sunday, September 5, 2010 7:42 am

Middle School Football

The game between Buchanan (2-1) and Siegel (3-0), finally won by Siegel 34- 28, was originally scheduled for Riverdale on Tuesday.

The late change on Monday morning, to play at Siegel on Monday night, clearly bothered the Cavaliers in the early going.

Despite some late arriving mosquitoes, it was a terrific game and featured a Siegel comeback from 16 points down, with stars everywhere for both teams, including, are you ready, a kicker.

Rushing yards and touchdowns were mostly done by LaRichie Howse of Buchanan and Andre and Andrew Knox of Siegel.

Quarterback Jean Odom of Buchanan, who has both quickness and speed, plays with courage.

Siegel quarterback Collin Stoecker can run an offense and the lefthander has great size and a nice spiral.

Both quarterbacks executed well enough to get nine touchdowns on the board with the help of special teams.

Almost everyone goes for two in middle school unless you’re a Cavalier, in which case John Ross Dewberry snaps it to Colton Gipson who holds (when he’s not catching passes) and Hayes Foster kicks it through – not once but twice.

A field goal is in Foster’s future and soon.

Lots of folks contributed on defense: Siegel’s Cody Hughes, Luke Hillis, Tate Larkins, Andrew Knox and Steven Major played, well as did Buchanan’s Zyquan Ward, Parker Reed, Houston Clark, Dallas Clark, Tae Sneed and LaRichie Howse.

We’ll have a lot more on these two teams later, but they both will be challenged by Oakland Middle (3-0) and all three are in the same division.

Siegel has the better chance to win the division with the win last night – it will likely come down to the Oakland game later in the season.

Also saw Oakland High play this past week and I was really impressed. The Pats dominated the Siegel Stars but likely would have dominated anyone on this night.

The Oakland formula seems to be made up of many parts.

1. Block perfectly and run, run, run! Usually with Tee Mayberry, Dre Frazier and Khalil Newman carrying the load but give it to Buddy Mitchell every once in while to drive the defense nuts.

2. Defense the run with serious effort and numbers and if passes are caught on either side of the line of scrimmage, make the tackle immediately.

3. Allow Christian Adams and later Sam Stephens to pass on occasion (they were a combined 10 of 16) but do not allow any interceptions and don’t take chances.

4. And finally control the kicking game and with Dustin Henry excelling, that’s not a problem. All of this lumped together has carried the Pats to a 3-0 record with a very tough 2-1 Brentwood team awaiting the Pats on the road Thursday.

It’s another reunion of ex-Riverdale Assistants – this time Ron Crawford who likely has trouble lifting his arm with all those championship rings he has from Brentwood and RHS.

He even once coached Coffee County to a winning record.

Siegel got nothing going all night offensively but the defense did have some good moments.

I had David Hayes as the leading tackler in the game and he got considerable help from Seth Anderson, Chase Pennycuff (who’s been very good for six years now), Ryan Roper, LaBrock Thomas and Tayor Wyant.

Oakland is good on defense and is an excellent tackling team.

On this night, Chris Watkins, Darius McAdoo and Webster Gilcrease all had sacks (McAdoo’s resulted in a safety) and all three had at least five tackles each while Buddy Mitchell, Justin Barrett and numerous others played well. Tee Mayberry even had a sack.

Touchdowns were scored by Tee Mayberry (three short runs), Khalil Newman, 17-yard run in the second quarter and a Christiana Adams 7-yard pass to Dustin Henry in the third quarter.

Other note: The game was played without a clock for the first half which seemed to really bother the officials who had numerous gaffs such as walking the wrong way on a 30-yard penalty (yes, 30!) and generally looking as if they were befuddled or confused as to who was supposed to watch what.

To make matters worse, the mercy rule went into effect shortly after the half and the clock ran most of the time, which seemed to confuse them still more.

More notes: Sam Stephens (who holds for extras and field goals) got some playing time at QB for the Pats and did well and Brent Stockstill finished up for the Stars and he also did well.

Another note: Buchanan Middle’s win over the Rockvale Ravens was the first volleyball win in school history – congrats to the players and Yellow Jacket coach Janice Howse. Janice – what you do now is get a new volleyball and have everyone sign it including Avy and put the scores on the ball and put it in the trophy case. Yep, that’s what you do.