Knights’ dominant first-half leads to sizable victory
Bryson City – What started as an even tilt quickly spiraled into a lopsided affair.
Robbinsville (5-0, 4-0) scored 38 unanswered points – after being turned away on its first two drives – in the first half of Friday’s road game against Swain County (2-3, 2-3), holding steady thereafter to collect a 38-6 win over the Maroon Devils.
“Our defense is awesome; I can’t say enough good things about it,” Robbinsville head coach Dee Walsh said. “They’re working their hind-ends off; the coaches are coming up with good plans, and the kids are executing.
“Yeah, we started sluggish, but we caught on.”
Indeed, the Knights were either forced to punt or turned the ball over on fourth down of their first pair of possessions. But two plays after Swain took offensive control once more, a fumble.
A recovery in the end zone.
And the floodgates opened.
Wade Hamilton recovered Carson Taylor’s fumble deep across the goal line for the first points of the night and from there, Robbinsville never looked back.
Cuttler Adams and Kage Williams dropped Swain quarterback Gabe Lillard for a losses on consecutive snaps in the ensuing possession, which soon gave the Knights the ball back. Lex Hooper later broke through and scored on a 26-yard run with 16 seconds left in the first quarter.
Though Robbinsville and Swain traded fumble recoveries early in the second, the Knights would strike again on a 2-yard push from Hooper. Nathan Collins later sprinted across the goal line on an 8-yard keeper and Isaac Wiggins would scoop up a Maroon Devils fumble on the following kickoff.
Cody Cline – who went 5-for-5 on extra points throughout the evening – went on to split the uprights for a 35-yard field goal in the aftermath and after a Haden Key fumble recovery, Adams ended the first-half outpour with an 8-yard score of his own.
Swain only started threatening in the second half – with many of Robbinsville’s reserves on the field – and finally erased the goose egg on a 48-yard keeper from Lillard.
But the Knights blocked the extra point to limit the effort.
“Our objective is to win and let everybody play,” Walsh said.
“With seven games and shortened playoffs, nobody is going to break a record. We need to be all-in for the team, let everybody play so the program will stay alive.
“We have a fast turnaround this year; we’ll get finished playing and in a couple of months, we’ll be playing again.”
Battle in the Valley
Robbinsville’s next opposition – Andrews (3-1, 3-1) – sits firmly in third place in the Smoky Mountain Conference standings and is coming off a bye week.
The Wildcats could prove to be the Knights’ biggest division test of the shortened campaign, as Robbinsville has outscored conference opponents 167-40 thus far this season. The Knights averaged 42 points in those games.
“Andrews is competing; they’ve got a lot of young kids that are playing hard and they’re excited,” Walsh said. “We’ve just got to go in and take care of business.”