Claiborne High School bused its football team over to Elizabethton to play Unaka, October 8.
The game was delayed around 30 minutes for lightning and the players were forced to stay in the locker room until 7:45.
Claiborne was still looking for their first win of the season and Coach Medlin along with his staff were working hard to get all they could out of the young team including implementing a triple option style of offense that worked well at Johnson County.
When the game finally began, the Bulldogs won the toss and deferred to the second half. Unaka received the ball and returned to the Bulldogs 48 yard line. One pass later, the Rangers were inside the red zone. The defense forced a fourth and two and after a measurement the Bulldogs offense had the ball.
Claiborne started their first drive with a six yard run. Austin Murrell and Josh Bolton ran the ball well and the Bulldogs moved the ball out to midfield with two first downs. After entering the Rangers side of the field the Bulldogs drive continued and ended with a quarter- ending fourth down and 12.
The second quarter began with a Claiborne pass that was short of the yard to make. Unaka started their drive backed up on their side of the field. Jason Green started making plays on defense but the Rangers were moving the ball through the air. A couple fumbles later James Satkowski and Tyrell Miles combined recovery efforts to find the end zone but the two point conversion failed, 6-0 Bulldogs.
Unaka was forced to punt and the Dogs started their offense down on the 16. The drive continued with another Murrell run but the very next play was a Bulldogs fumble. The Rangers recovered.
Unaka struggled to move the ball and was faced with a fourth and 10 in Bulldogs territory. The Bulldogs defense forced a turnover on downs and set the offense up on the Dogs 24 yard line. One play later, Claiborne gave the ball right back to the Rangers via a fumble.
Unaka started on the Bulldogs seven yard line. One play later Unaka scored on a QB run. The two point conversion was good, 8-6 Rangers.
Claiborne started at midfield on their next drive and the rushing game was still hot. The Bulldogs reached the red zone aided by a roughing the passer penalty and Bolton found pay dirt with 31 seconds to go in the half. The conversion attempt fell short and the Bulldogs led 12-8. The half ended 12-8.
When the second half got underway, Claiborne had the ball first. Murrell reached the first down marker via the ground game and Landen Wilson helped pick up another first down on a keeper but the Bulldogs drive ended with a fumbled snap on a punt.
The Rangers took over with good field position but were not able to push it in. The Bulldogs took over on offense just as the third quarter clock was ending. The Bulldogs drive failed as well and with five minutes to go the Rangers were driving again and had a first and goal near the seven yard line. The Rangers pushed it in with 2:02 remaining. The conversion was no good but the Rangers still led 14-12.
Claiborne had a shot as the clock was ticking down and Wilson hit Zack Bailey down at the 23 yard line to continue the drive. The Bulldogs ran down to the five yard line with 13.8 seconds remaining. An apparent Wilson run out of bounds wasn’t actually called out of bounds and the clock ran out with the final score 14-12, Unaka with the win. Josh Holt of WNTT stated on air that for a moment the clock was stopped and quickly restarted to end the game. Holt said, “I don’t normally question the officials but I don’t know about that one.”
The officials evidently saw Wilson down in bounds and kept the clock running but Claiborne fans clearly saw him go out of bounds leaving the Bulldogs fans, players and coaches angry.
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