by Rusty Ellis
The Stone Memorial Panthers got their season off to a 1-0 start with a thrilling 25-20 win over the Cookeville Cavaliers.
After both teams went scoreless on their opening drives, it was the Panthers who struck first on a 36-yard touchdown from Nick Osmun to Jayden ‘Bear’ Eldridge with 2:46 to go in the first quarter.
Those two would connect three more times throughout the night, as Osmun found Eldridge in the endzone from 19-yards-out early in the second quarter to put the Panthers up a couple of scores, though a failed two-point conversion attempt left the door open at 13-0 for the Cavaliers.
Cookeville got on the board thanks to an Isaac Frye four-yard touchdown run with 6:12 to go in the first half, and with just 41 seconds left, Blake Owen gave the Cavaliers the lead at 14-13 with his 14-yard touchdown run.
Stone wasted no time in answering out of the halftime locker room, as Osmun hit Eldridge again for an 80-yard touchdown pass to give the Panthers an early third-quarter lead of 19-13 after another failed conversion attempt.
Owen answered right back with a three-yard touchdown run of his own to give Cookeville the lead right back at 20-19, and this is where the defenses settled in.
With 2:30 left in regulation, Cookeville was faced with a second-and-20, looking to run the clock. Owens was picked off on a screen-pass attempt however, as Stone took over near midfield with just over two minutes left in the game.
And the Panthers took advantage of the untimely mistake by Cookeville, as the drove down the field and Osmun found Eldridge for the fourth time with 11.1 seconds remaining to give the Panthers a 25-20 lead they would not relinquish.
For head coach Derik Samber, games like this are where he says you win on the backs of your senior leadership and your team’s ability to overcome adversity.
“A lot of heart, Cookeville’s a much-improved football team,” Samber said. “Stone’s never beat them, and we found a way…that’s the difference. Senior leadership, senior playmakers, man I’m glad these guys are on my side.”
Eldridge found holes in the Cavalier defense all night, and when the Panthers needed him most, he came through with a sliding catch on a ball that only he could get to.
“I knew the play-call was for my side, so when I saw him go that way, I just came back to the ball,” Eldridge said. “Our wide receiver’s coach has been working on scramble drills with us…it just happened to work out.”
The connection between Osmun and Eldridge was evident from the start, and it’s a testament to the hard work Samber sees those two put in day in and day out.
“The preparation these two put in all week, kids like this win football games like this,” Samber said. “Leadership like this wins football games like this, I couldn’t be more proud of these guys.”
In the postgame huddle, Samber made it clear that this team’s goal wasn’t just to win at Cookeville and call it a season, though it’s a great stepping stone to where they want to go.
“1-0 was the goal this week, and we’ve got bigger goals than that,” Samber said. “We saw last year that non-region games and region tiebreakers can be a lot of difference. So this was a big win, no two ways about it, and we’re on to Sweetwater and the rest of the schedule.”
Stone Memorial will head to Sweetwater next Friday, while Cookeville will host PURE Academy.
