NOTE: It’s Fall Break and the Savages are home tonight (Thursday) to host Blanchard.
It was another long night on the gridiron last Friday night in District 4A-2 play as they went to Cushing and found themselves smothered early in a 49-6 loss.
The Tigers took advantage of several Tecumseh errors in the early going and used an all-star quarterback and receiving corp. to make the Savages pay early and often. “Cushing is a really good team with a lot of weapons,” according to Savage head coach Ty Bullock. “When you play a team like that you have to play a clean game and we didn’t do that.”
Cushing scored on its first drive with a fiveyard pass from Blaze Berlowitz to Camden Crooks. The extra-point was blocked, and Tecumseh was down 6-0 with under three-minutes gone in the game.
Berlowitz finished the night with three touchdown passes and a rushing TD. Berlowitz scored Cushing’s next touchdown late in the first quarter on a 31-yard run. This time Riley Matheson booted the PAT, and the Tigers had a 13-0 lead.
Cushing picked up two more touchdowns in the second quarter to take a 27-0 lead into halftime. The first in the second period was a 23-yard pass from Berlowitz to Jacob Kimmel while the second TD was a one-yard plunge by Matheson. Matheson was true on both extra-points to complete the scoring before intermission.
The third quarter was a better one for the Savages with the exception of two big plays by the Tigers. Tecumseh was moving the ball successfully down the field when a tipped pass was intercepted and returned for a touchdown by Caleb Peery who covered 36-yards for the score. The PAT was good, and Cushing had a 34-0 lead with less than two-minutes gone in the third.
The next big play in the third was a 62-yard pass from Berlowitz to Camden Crooks. Again, Matheson kicked the extra-point, and the game was officially out of reach at 41-0 with less than half of the third quarter gone.
Cushing substituted liberally in the fourth quarter and the Savages second teamers took advantage to give Tecumseh it’s biggest play ever, in history, maybe. Rumor has it that the record for longest TD run in the school’s history was 97-yards.
On Friday, it was matched by Shaun Hill as the Savages were pinned deep on their three-yard line to start their drive. Hill took the handoff, went right, and outraced the entire Cushing team down the boundary for the exciting touchdown run. Tecumseh went for a two-point conversion and failed but had gotten on the scoreboard to make the score 41-6 with just over 10-minutes left in the game.
With all subs in the game for both teams, Cushing scored a meaningless touchdown in the fourth to make the final score 49-6, including a two-point conversion.
The Savages outdistanced the Tigers in offensive yardage, 353-345 in the loss. Tecumseh had success moving the ball from 20 to 20 but were unable to take advantage of scoring opportunities in the red zone when they presented themselves.
The Savages had 312 rushing yards and threw for 41. Monte Valois was 9-of-17 passing for the 41-yards. Jaxon Meyers caught three passes for 28-yards. Taekwan Krush and Daveon Mays each had two receptions for seven-yards. Dylan Graham caught one pass for three-yards.
Hill led the Savages on the strength of the 97-yard TD for a total of 107-yards. Tyler Girod had three carries for 106-yards. Jace Frazier, Monte Valois and Dylan Graham each carried the ball eight times for 36, 28 and 24-yards respectively. Maddox Anderson had two rushes for sevenyards while Conner Barksdale had three rushes for four-yards. Amos Galloway ran the ball one time for four-yards.
The defense was led by Jace Frazier with 13-tackles, including one for loss and an interception. Hunter Hadsall had nine-tackles. Wyatt England had eight-tackles, tow for loss and a sack. Anderson had four-tackles. Mays had three-tackles and a pass defended. Girod had three-tackles and one tackle for loss. Mason Whitman also had three takedowns.
The Todd Colburn Oklahoma Farm Bureau MVP of the Game was Girod with 106-yards of offense, all against the Cushing first team and also had three-tackles, one for loss on a tough night all around for the Savages.
The Savages fell to 1-5 overall on the season and 1-2 in District 4A-2 and will be at home tonight (Thursday) for another tough district tilt as they host Blanchard. “Blanchard has a really fast defense and one of the best players in our district, number 13,” said Bullock. “Offensively, they run a spread option and will read the defensive end and run or throw. We’ll have to play sound defense to slow them down.”
Kickoff is set for 7:00pm at Tecumseh Stadium.
