Warren County remained undefeated on Friday, stunning Blackman with an impressive 35-27 road victory.
The Blaze (1-4, 1-1 were down 35-7 late in the third yet found themselves recovering an onside kick with 16 seconds left and a final shot to tie which ultimately fell short.
“We’ve been seeing their program grow since coach (Matt) Turner’s been there,” Blackman coach Kit Hartsfield said. “They’ve played big in every big game the last two years and it was no different tonight. Coach Turner had his boys ready and CJ Taylor gave us all the problems we could have.”
Taylor, reigning Athlete of the Year, seemed "untackleable" as he rushed for 282 yards and all five Warren County scores. Taylor amassed over 200 in the first half alone.
“I saw him (Taylor) untackleable on film and I saw him untackleable on this field tonight,” Hartsfield said. “He has a lot of hype and he proved who he was, and he was the alpha-male out here tonight.”
The Blaze fell quickly into a 21-point deficit until they finally got on the board in the second quarter, thanks to a 31-yard strike from Drew Beam to Todd Lark.
It was Blackman’s only scoring outside of the final 15 minutes of the game despite multiple trips inside the Pioneers’ 30 yard line.
“We’ve got to finish drives,” Hartsfield said. “They were moving the ball early and we needed to match a couple of scores. We could have been one away there before the half, but hats off to them. You have to show up every Friday night in this district and we got out-played.”
Warren County opened the second half with two more scores to grab the 35-7 lead that finally woke Blackman offense up.
The Blaze running game was stymied for the most part, but Jaylyn Pleasant managed to poke one in to start the Blackman would-be comeback.
Beam led the rest of the way, picking up two more touchdown passes to Du’mikah Dowdy and Mark Cooper on his way to 299 yards passing. The senior had five completions over 30 yards, including the touchdown to Cooper which was 49 yards.
The Blaze are down but certainly not out,, but will face a tough second half of the season starting with Riverdale and Oakland in consecutive weeks, and finishing out the year against Cookeville.
