Honaker impressive in shutout of Wave
Honaker (28) vs. Clintwood (0)
Written: Oct 12, 2013
BY ANTHONY STEVENS
for the Daily Telegraph
HONAKER, Va. — It wasn’t what most expected. The Tigers continued to gain respect in the 2013 football season with a 28-0 shutout of Clintwood at Fuller Field at EMATS Stadium. Honaker (6-0) broke open a tight game with 21 second half points.
“We said all week we had to come out and get this win to make a statement,” outside linebacker Shey Bunn said.
“I think it was one of the biggest victories we’ve had this year.”
The Tigers held a 7-0 halftime lead. The Tigers scored on a six-play 66 yard TD drive. Fullback Mackenzie Phillips had runs of 20 and 12 yards. It set up a misdirection play up the middle by Chase Johnson who scored on a 21-yard run.
They probably should have had a bigger advantage. Honaker had a couple of impressive drives but ended up missing two field goals and were only up a touchdown. They held the Greenwave to only 44 yards of total offense in the first half.
“I was a little worried,” said Bunn. “Clintwood was playing good defense and we were too. We just came out in the second half and played better offense than we did in the first half.”
Honaker scored the first three times they had the ball in the second half to put the game away.
They took the second half kickoff and drove 74 yards in nine plays. The big play came when Casey Dye hit wide receiver Randy Horton racing down the sideline for a 47 yard gain. That set up a three-yard TD run by Dye who out run the defense around the right end as the Tigers took a 14-0 lead.
Clintwood (4-1) tried to establish something on offense. They drove inside the Honaker 40, but Bunn had a clutch “pick-six” intercepting Greenwave quarterback Dalton Dahley and returning it 70-yards for a score.
“I felt they were going to try to flood my zone,” Bunn said. “They threw the ball my way and I undercut the route. I didn’t think I was going to get into the end zone, but here comes Randy (Horton) and makes a great block and so did Casey Harmon.”
Down 21-0 Clintwood couldn’t recover. They had trouble getting anything consistently working on offense. The Greenwave had only 160 yards of total offense and eight first downs. They punted the football six times and turned the ball over on downs once.
“We just got whipped by a good football team,” said Clintwood coach Rick Mullins. “We just got beat up front, we couldn’t get anything going. I thought our defense played pretty well to start with, but we got a little tired and they wore us out in the second half.”
The Tigers added another TD early in the fourth quarter. Tailback Austin Smith scored on a seven-yard rush culminating a nine play, 74 yard drive for the final margin.
Smith had 93 of the Tigers 290 yards on the ground. Smith now has 815 yards through six games this season. Phillips added 56 rushing yards on eight carries. Hayden Horn led the Honaker defense with 11 tackles.
“It was different kids making plays all night long,” Honaker coach Doug Hubbard said. “My kids did a really good job. Our defense was able to keep them contained, pitching a shutout against Clintwood is a pretty impressive thing.”
The Greenwave will travel on Friday to face an old Lonesome Pine District foe at J.I. Burton. Honaker will host Hurley
at Fuller Field
Clintwood............................0 0 0 0 — 0
Honaker................................7 0 14 7 — 28
Scoring Summary
HON — Johnson 21 run (Phillips kick)
HON — Dye 3 run (Phillips kick)
HON — Bunn 70 interception return (Phillips kick)
HON — Smith 7 run (Phillips kick)
Team Stats
First Downs: CLI 8, HON 19; Rushes-Yards: CLI 28-94, HON 46-290; Passing Yards: CLI 66, HON 91; Comp-Att-Int: CLI 6-18-1, HON 4-11-0; Fumbles-Lost: CLI 0-0, HON 2-0; Penalties-Yards: CLI 3-21, HON 3-25; Punts-Average: CLI 6-40.6, HON 4-20.8.
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