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1004_DixWay_fball

 

Dixie surges in second half.
J. C. Tilton

Dixie hosted Waynesville this last Friday night. The first half was all Waynesville, but Dixie made things interesting in the second half. During their first series Dixie had a miscue on a third and long play. The ball was snapped over the quarterbacks head and recovered in the endzone for a safety. Dixie elected to point on the kick after the safety, but the ball was shanked and this gave the Spartans good field position. They took advantage of the Dixie miscues and went up 9-0. Waynesville was able to move the ball again and scored on a 20 yard run to go up 16-0. Although Dixie was able to move the ball, they could not find the endzone. Waynesville scored again before the half to go up 23-0.

In the second half, the Dixie offense came alive. Todd Mitchel had a 24 yard TD run to finally get Dixie on the board. Dixie decided to roll the dice and do an onsides kick. The dice came up snake eyes for Waynesville as Dixie recovered the ball and marched down the field. Ben Spahr had a 4 yard TD catch and Craft scored on the 2 point conversion and suddenly Dixie was in striking distance down 23-16. Waynesville was reeling, but they were able to answer the challenge to their lead. They scored their final TD of the night on 50 yard streak that caught the Hound corners napping. Then Dixie scored and now were within a TD, down 30-23. Dixie ended up the ball in the 4th quarter with about 6 minutes left in the game. They put together a 9 play drive that put them almost to the Spartan 20. But on 4th and 8 with about a minute left, they could not convert and Waynesville ran out the clock to end the Hounds 2nd half rally.

Coach Bullock was pleased that his players did not quit and played a great second half. He stated that “We have been a good second half team all year. We just need to get 2 good halves each game.” The team fumbled the ball away 4 times and they had 6 penalties, several of them happening at inopportune times. Currently, the team is starting one senior on offense and 2 seniors on defense so it is a young team that is still learning. Although the team is 2-5, they could easily be 5-2. They were beaten solidly by Eaton and Oakwood, but the other games were close. This week David Huber had a good game at guard and defensive end, Anders let the team in tackles at linebacker, and Ryan Forte had a key play - a 45 yard interception and return that set up a Dixie score.

 

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