Story by Rusty Ellis
The Cookeville Cavaliers were originally slated to close out the regular season on Thursday at Shelbyville, but due to expected inclement weather, the two teams will square off on Wednesday night.
In week 10, the Cavaliers battled through an injury to starting quarterback Mace Thomsen and found themselves tied with Blackman at 29 heading into halftime. 20 unanswered points pushed the Blaze lead to 49-29 before the Cavaliers scored a final time in a 49-36 defeat.
While the loss stings, Cookeville put together one of their best offensive outputs of the season and battled against a really tough offense.
“I thought our kids really played hard,” said CHS head coach Jimmy Maynord. “Offensively, we had a lot of success running the football. We kind of had to scramble around after our quarterback went down in the first quarter…we had to get creative and do some things on the fly, but our offensive line did a good job of blocking and we were able to get some good drives going.”
Blackman’s offense has averaged around 40 points a game for the season, but even with the 49 points given up, Maynord was quick to point out the effort on that side of the ball for the Cavaliers.
“They’re very hard to defend,” Maynord said. “Our guys played hard against a very good football team…nobody’s defended them well except Riverdale. We gave ourselves a chance and that’s all you can ask for.”
Owen will get the start against Shelbyville on Wednesday night, as the general concern is that Thomsen tore his ACL. While it didn’t result in a win, Maynord was very complimentary of his effort against the Blaze.
“He’s a freshman and he’s been playing on our freshman team, so he had no varsity experience whatsoever,” Maynord said. “He’s never lined up with our first-team offense…the kid went in there and didn’t flinch at all and did some good things.”
Preparing for Shelbyville, the team many believed was the front-runner for the region crown, is already tough enough. Now, the Cavaliers have two fewer days than they originally would have due to the expected weather on Thursday.
“It obviously cuts you short,” Maynord said. “We had a productive practice yesterday because we knew we were a day short, and we’ll have a good practice today…it is what it is. I understand not wanting to play in heavy rain and cold weather, especially if you can avoid that this time of the year.”
As far as the Golden Eagles go on the field, it’ll be yet another tough challenge for the Cavaliers to close the regular season.
“They’re obviously a really athletic team, and they’re very big,” Maynord said. “They’re physical and play really good on defense…they’ve been kind of like us on offense with turnovers, but they’ve played a really tough schedule. It’s one of the toughest schedules in 6A. They have a good football team, and we’re going to have play well to be competitive in this game.”
The two teams will square off on Wednesday night at 7 P.M. The game will be live-streamed on the Upper Cumberland Reporter Facebook page.