The 7th grade Tigers added another victory to their season last Thursday night by beating the visiting Lebanon Yellow Jackets 14-6.  The game was dominated by both defenses early until midway through the first quarter when Tau Asi broke off right tackle for the Tigers and outraced all defenders to the endzone for the games opening points.  Bishop Godwin connected with Mason Perez for the successful 2 point conversion to put the Tigers up 8-0.  That scored held until halftime.  In the second half, the Jackets couldn't get their running game going but did manage to connect on a big pass midway through the 3rd quarter when the Jacket receiver got behind the Tiger secondary.  The TD pass went for 40 yards but the 2 point try failed and the Tigers kept the lead at 8-6.  Both teams continued to play very strong defense and held each other from scoring until late in the 4th quarter.  The Tigers were forced to punt from their own end and Mason Perez came up huge with a booming kick that flipped the field.  A Yellow Jacket player made a critical error and attempted to pick up the rolling punt but mishandled it.  The Tigers recovered the live ball and took over with a new set of downs.  That's when Franklin Myers broke off a brilliant run from his fullback position.  On 3rd and long he broke past the Jacket defensive line and bobbed, weaved and bowled himself down inside the Jacket 5 yard line giving the Tigers a new set of downs by moving the chains.  On the next play with momentum on their side, Bishop Godwin ran a naked bootleg from his quarterback position for a touchdown.  The conversion attempt failed and the Tigers kicked off to the Jackets up 14-6 with less than 2 minutes to play.  The Jackets attempted to pass the ball on their final drive but the Tiger defense shut it down and iced the victory.  The Tigers move to 3-1 on the year and will travel to Camdenton next Thursday (10/11) for their next contest.

Thursday night was another dog fight for the Waynesville Tigers 7th grade Football B Team. The Yellowjackets roughed us up and scored first half on a run to the outside. The rest of the game, however belonged to the Tigers dominant defense and valiant offense. Ilija Alavanje had a quite interesting game as he lit things up at linebacker, later switching gears to play some offense. He showed much character jumping in at fullback and making all kinds of noise, all while wearing a hard cast on his arm. Maverick Davis did a fine job filling in for the versatile Alavanja. Keowne held down the mid field at linebacker, while pulling double duty at offensive tackle. Shay Sinitiere managed everything in front of him at Safety, managing to get us an interception; while also playing offense at wide receiver. A variety of circumstances required the 7th Grade Tiger Football staff to get quite creative to convene all the correct moving part to keep the ship sailing. Running back Washington got us marching, but exhausted his allotted playing time. Franklin “The Ghost” Myers stepped in at running back and picked us up a Tiger touchdown on a magnificent run to tie up the game. After Elijah griffin got banged up at quarterback, Julian Vargas stepped in and kept the Tigers on the prowl. After Myers had to leave the game early due to injury, Vargas had to move back to the tailback  Douglas “Douggie Doug” Figueroa showed great poise filling in at QB at a time of pandemonium. Vargas and Figueroa we’re switching positions from play to play on the last drive of the game, 0 time outs and about 75 seconds of regulation time left in the game. It was the hammer Michael Derr who played some shut-down corner earlier in the night as well as tight end the entire game. A completely exhausted Derr and Tigers offense lines up for one last play around the 25 yard line. Vargas takes the snap, rolls out, connects a perfect ball to Derr. Derr leaves it all on the field as he finds the end zone. Vargas tacks on his second two point rushing conversion on the evening. The automatic Tigers defense shuts down the jackets for one last play of the game. Fields, Henson, and company dealing with a last-minute offensive line assembly, did a great job helping those guys with assignments, and never seemed to get tired or let up. The Tiger coaching staff always thinks when these boys can’t impress us anymore, things like this happen. We can’t wait to see what we can do this Thursday in Camdenton against the always solid Lakers.