JV Knights halt Cherokee at goal line
Robbinsville – In a frantic scramble, Cherokee had reached the Knights’ 11-yard line.
The Braves had no way to stop the clock in the closing moments of Aug. 31’s junior-varsity showdown under the Big Oaks, as Cherokee had burned all of its timeouts in the moments leading up to the play.
With the crowd at a fever pitch on both sides of Modeal Walsh Memorial Stadium, Dawson Panther fired a bullet to Kimo Sokol. He reeled in the ball, turned and lunged at the end zone – all while Robbinsville’s Cameron Allison, Bam Nelms and Eli Lambert did their best to keep him from breaking the plane.
Sokol landed with a thud – on top of Nelms and Lambert, to be exact – and across Bob Colvin Field, the universal consensus was that the effort had given Cherokee the victory.
But an official ruled Sokol down at the 1-yard line. The clock read 4.5; it quickly read zero. The Braves could not get reset in time; and Robbinsville (2-1) prevailed in a wild 12-10 conference opener.
“If I had one word for this game, I’d call it ‘gutsy,’” said Robbinsville head coach Wren Millsaps. “Good teams have to win the ugly games.”
It took some chicanery from the Knights to finally end a scoreless first half. With both sides proving stubborn on defense, Robbinsville finally manufactured six points on a halfback pass: newly-installed quarterback Tucker Jones pitched the ball to Allison, who flung a spiral 21 yards into the waiting hands of Xamuel Wachacha at the 6:56 mark of the second quarter.
Cherokee prevented the conversion attempt that followed from being successful, but once again was stymied on its next drive; including Elijah Kirkland dropping Panther for a sack. The final joust for the Knights came moments later, when Allison leapt in the air to pick off Panther and post a 62-yard pick six.
Allison committed one more act of thievery at the halftime buzzer, but his return attempt was stopped before he could reach the end zone again.
The Braves finally cracked the scoreboard with 6:38 left in the game, on a 6-yard Kyitan Johnson run. Landon Seay then ran in the conversion. The Knights later had to gift the ball back to Cherokee, but promptly took possession once more with 1:40 to go on a Jason Solles’ interception. It was during this drive that the Braves burned all of their remaining timeouts – and in what proved to be smart strategy, Robbinsville willingly fell victim to a safety with 1:01 left.
Cherokee started with just 36 yards to cover before the final horn.
They made it 35.
“I felt like our defense played really well,” Millsaps added. “Our offense has had a ton of moving parts over the first three weeks and we hope that against Murphy, we can get settled in and get the offense to rolling.”