By Ron Bliss
KnoxSportsOnline.com
KNOXVILLE The regular season ended in a frustrating way for Knox Catholic, which lost four of its last six games. But the playoffs are a new season and the Fighting Irish put together one of their best games of the season Friday night to beat Morristown West, 24-14, and buoy their hopes of salvaging the season with post-season success.
We finally played a complete game, said coach Scott Meadows. This is what we have been striving to do. We finally put four quarters together.
The Fighting Irish got 134 yards on 18 carries from Dorian Cozart and 132 yards passing from Tyler Williamson including a big, 66-yard TD strike to Spencer Mackle and took advantage of five Morristown West turnovers to break the game open and improve to 6-5.
Catholic will travel to Kingsport next week to play Sullivan South (9-2), which beat Powell, 42-16, in its first-round 5A playoff game Friday.
It feels good to win like this, said Catholic all-state lineman Zak Tait. It is the first of many, I hope. Feels good to play one of our best games of the year. I think they might have overlooked us some, but we played a tough 6A schedule all year and I think that prepared us for the 5A playoffs.
Morristown West trailed 10-0 at halftime, but pulled within 10-7 when Jordan Bishop broke a number of tackles en route to a 54-yard TD. But the Trojans momentum was short-lived. Just three plays later, Catholic quarterback Tyler Williamson got West to bite on play-action and that left Mackle wide open beyond defenders and he hauled in a pass and rambled 66 yards to the end zone to make it 17-7 and put the momentum back in Catholics favor.
Coach (Scott) Gasper said he thought theyd bite on play-action, there if we tried it, said Meadows.
They had been cheating up with their safeties to guard against the run, said Williamson. They were coming up for run support, so I just put it out there and Spencer ran under it. This is a good start. Now, we need to win four more.
It was a good call by the coaches, said Mackle.
They got us on play-action there, said West coach Lamar Brown. We bit up there with a safety and they threw it over our head.
We just had too many turnovers tonight. Thats what killed us.
West had two passes intercepted, both by Williamson, and lost three fumbles.
The Catholic defense, other than the 54-yard run by Bishop, limited West to just 127 other yards.
West came out in a Wildcat formation and Justin Everhart was moving his team downfield, but couldnt sustain it. West went back to its base offense and bogged down.
We turned it over out of it, so went back to our base offense, said Brown, whose team has struggled on offense at times this season.
Cozart broke off a 72-yard run to set up Catholics first score.
I thought I was in, said Cozart. I hit the pylon with my foot, but they said I was out of bounds before I got there. But thats fine. At least we got it on the next play.
Williamson took it the final yard on a quarterback sneak. Luke Mishu added a 22-yard field goal following Williamsons second interception to make it 10-0 in the first quarter. That was the halftime score, as well, and Catholic pulled away in the second half.
It was 24-7 when a bad snap on a punt gave West possession on the Catholic 4 with less than a minute to play and West scored on a pass from Patrick Ashford to Austin Greene of six yards that only made the hurt a little less.
The loss ended Wests season at 8-3. All three District 2, 3A teams lost. Sevier County lost at home to Knox Bearden, 35-34, and Morristown East lost at Daniel Boone, 38-28.
Here are statistics from the game:
Knox Catholic 24, Morristown West 14
KC
..MW
First Downs
12
8
Rushes/Yards Gained
46-181..30-141
Passing Yards
..132
40
Total Offense
.313
..181
Passes A-C-I
.6-11-0
7-20-2
Fumbles/Lost
.4-3
..4-3
Punts/Average
..4-37.0..3-32.7
Penalties/Yards
4-36
..2-17
Score by quarters:
Knox Catholic
10
..0
..7
..7 24
Morristown West
.0
..0
..7
..7 14
Scoring Plays:
KC Tyler Williamson, 1 run (Jared Julies kick)
KC Luke Mishu, 22 field goal
MW Jordan Bishop, 54 run (Curt Duncan kick)
KC Spencer Mackle, 66 pass from Williamson (Julies kick)
KC Cody Shirley, 13 run (Julies kick)
MW Austin Greene, 6 pass from Patrick Ashford (Duncan kick)
Individual Statistics:
Rushing: KC Cozart, 18-134; Shirley, 8-44; Kropalik, 3-23; Kennedy 7-18; Williamson, 6-4; McDermott 2-2; Ridley, 1-(-2); Team, 1-(-22). MW Bishop 10-76; Everhart 8-64; Brooks 4-2; Goins 4-3; Kelley 1-7; Lee 3(-11).
Passing: KC Williamson, 6-11-0, 132. MW Ashford, 5-16-2, 40; Lee, 1-4-0, 0.
Receiving: KC Mackle 2-74; Bonfini 1-33; Cozart 2-22; Shirley 1-3. MW Callahan, 1-15; Brooks, 1-12; Greene, 1-6; Bishop, 1-4; Ostrowski, 1-2; Cook, 1-1; Swain, 1-0.
