COVINGTON – The Covington Buccaneers took care of business with a dominating performance that led to a 49-14 victory over Troy Christian on a Homecoming night.
Things started off great before the game even started as the Covington crowd was packed and the homecoming court was honored by the fans that were present. What also made it special for the football team was the senior lineman and great kid A.J. Reyes being chosen as the Homecoming King and senior cross country runner and cheerleader Bella Welch was chosen as the Homecoming Queen.
It was apparent that the night of the Homecoming Ceremony generated excitement and intensity in the minds of the Buccaneer players as they all played with relentless effort from start to finish for four quarters.
The game started in the opening drive by Troy Christian and the Buccs stopped the Eagles on three straight plays to force a punt.
The Buccs then drove the ball with great runs by Christian Clark, Landin Cassel and Trenton Havenar along with two well executed passes. The opening possession for the Buccs was capped by a three-yard touchdown run by senior Christian Clark for 7-0 with 6:41 left in first.
After stopping Troy Christian on a three-and-out again, the Buccs took over the ball at the Eagles’ 30. Three plays later Tyler Palsgrove scored on a 7-yard run to put the Buccs up 14-0 with 4:34 left in first period.
Troy Christian then moved the ball inside the red zone on the ensuing possession, but the Buccaneers stopped the Eagles on fourth down due to a tackle for loss by Tyler Palsgrove. Unfortunately, the Buccs threw an interception two plays later to give the Eagles the ball back at the Covington 43 and Troy Christian scored on a 35-yard pass play to cut the score to 14-7 with 51 seconds left in the opening period.
The frustration ignited the Buccs as they responded with 21-yard touchdown run by Landin Cassel of the following possession to go up 21-7 with 7:05 left in the first half.
Covington then recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff to take over at the 35 on Troy Christian’s side of the field. A few plays later Christian Clark scored on a six-yard run to advance the lead to 28-7 with 5:25 left in half.
Troy Christian tried to respond on its next possession by attempting a trick play on a fourth down situation. Fortunately, the Buccs stopped the Eagles on a faked punt to take over the ball at the Eagles’ 45. Landon Cassel followed up by scoring on a 15-yard run to push the Buccs’ lead to 35-7 with 1:32 left in the half.
The Buccaneer defense forced Troy Christian to punt in limited time and Day’Lynn Garrett returned the ball to the Eagles’ 21 to put Covington in potential scoring position with 25.5 seconds left in the half with two timeouts still available. The Buccaneers executed perfectly in a short period of time and Landin Cassel capitalized the scoring opportunity as he threw a 14-yard strike to Day’Lynn Garrett in the end zone with three seconds left on the clock to make the score 42-7 at the half.
With the second half being in a running clock, the Buccs started off with a very well executed time consuming drive that was capped by a one-yard run by Landin Cassel to put the score up to 49-7 with 3:39 left in the third.
With the victory for Covington secured, the Buccs put younger players on the field the rest of the game and they played extremely well due to maximum effort. A huge run by freshman Cooper Turner set the Buccs up inside the 20, but unfortunately a critical penalty ended the potential scoring drive as Covington came up just short on a fourth down play.
Troy Christian was able to score on a long pass play late in the fourth quarter to make the final score 49-14.
Overall, Covington tallied 404 yards of offense with 336 of the yards accumulated in the ground game by eight players.
Defensively, the Buccaneers were dominating in the ground game as they held Troy Christian to negative 18 yards on the ground. The Eagles did accumulate 216 yards in the passing game, but several yards came late in the game when the younger Buccaneers were on the field.
The win for Covington moves the team’s overall record to 2-4 and 2-1 in the TRC with the next game being a road contest at Bethel.
| 1ST | 2ND | 3RD | 4TH | FINAL | |
| BUCCS | 14 | 28 | 7 | 0 | 49 |
| EAGLES | 7 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 14 |
