It was battle of running games at Elizabethton on Friday night with Ethan Thomas and the Cyclones coming out on top.
Elizabethton gave Tennessee High their first loss of the season as the Cyclones captured a 49-35 victory. The win moves Elizabethton to 4-1 on the year.
Thomas opened the scoring early as he scored from 29 yards out on Elizabethton’s first drive, but Jacob Jasper answered for the Vikings from 25 yards out after a lengthy drive. Thomas returned the opening kickoff for 86 yards to send Elizabethton to a 14-7 lead entering the second quarter.
Tennessee High, however, answered on the first play of the second quarter with a five-yard touchdown run. The Cyclones were not going to be outdone as Caleb Armstrong hit Marcus Olds for an 11-yard score. After Tennessee High tied it at 21-21, Thomas gave Elizabethton a 28-21 halftime lead with a 14-yard touchdown.
In the third quarter, the Vikings scored early to tie the game at 28-28. However, Caleb Jones plunged into the end zone from a yard out on fourth down to give the Cyclones a score advantage heading into the fourth.
The final stanza saw Thomas record two touchdowns that bookmarked a Viking touchdown to secure the win.
Thomas finished the game with 261 rushing yards on 28 carries, and had over 350 all-purpose yards. Jones finished with 55 yards on 11 carries, while Armstrong added 84 yards through the air.
Quotable
“All the credit goes to the guys in the black jerseys. It was a great football game, and we knew it was going to be 48 minutes. Our two running backs ran hard and it was going to go to which team was going to win the rushing battle. We got a couple of stops when we needed to. It is a tremendous football game.”
“Our kids deserve a lot of credit for this game. Preparation for two weeks and they came out and did exactly what we needed to do. It is exciting to see how much better we got tonight.”
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