Seniors Beat Owls, Will Play Livingston for Championship

One of the title songs for the widely acclaimed broadway play ‘Les Miserables’ is Claude-Michel Schonberg’s “One Day More”. In the play, the song portrays the night before a group of French Patriots fight for their independence and political freedom .  For the Senior Tigers, “One Day More” will see DeKalb fight to avenge their season’s only blemish, a chance to win a championship and achieve year long glory.

In Saturday’s semi final game of the Middle Tennessee Football Conference championships, DeKalb took care of business, beating the Smith County Owls, 19-8.

Issac Knowles had 146 yards and a touchdown for DeKalb Saturday.

Backed by an offensive line that has been simply stellar all season long, Tiger tailback, Issac Knowles had his most explosive game of the season, carrying the ball 22 times for an astounding 146 yards a touchdown in the contest.  The line opened seemingly truck sized holes for all its running backs throughout, as DeKalb rushed for 282 total yards and totally dominated the Owl Defense.

Tiger Quarterback, Kolter Kilgore managed the game well for DeKalb, finding the endzone with his legs twice in the contest.

Desmond Nokes and the Tiger Defense shined as well in the contest, giving up only one early touchdown and totally shutting down the Owl Offense attack throughout the remainder of the game.  Perhaps the defensive statement of the game came with just 46 seconds left in the 3rd quarter when Nokes intercepted the ball and ended an Smith County scoring threat and effectively sealing the win for the Tigers.

Smith County did get on the board first, taking only 48 seconds to score what would end up being their only score of the contest, and jumping out to an early 8-0 lead.

DeKalb would answer however, as Knowles would find the endzone with 1:58 left in the first quarter to pull the Tigers within 2, 8-6.

Kilgore would get the Tigers’ go ahead score with 1:29 left in the first half and Knowles would convert the point after, giving the Tigers a 5 pint advantage, 13-8, going into the break.

DeKalb’s final score of the contest would come with 3:39 left in the third quarter, expanding its lead to 11, and sealing the victory for the Tigers, 19-8.

For the game, behind Knowles, Desmond Nokes  and Josh May each ran 7 times for 60 yards and 56 yards respectively, while Drew Vickers added 6 yards on 2 attempts.  Kolter Kilgore carried the ball 3 times for 5 yards and 2 touchdowns and added 7 yards through the air for DeKalb in the contest.

Defensively, Nokes had 4 tackles throughout the game, while Josh May and Colby Barnes each had 3.  Four Tigers, Brady Hale, Issac Knowles, Matt Vickers and Grayson Hendrix each had 2 tackles and Joel Rader and Drew Vickers added 1 apiece in the contest.

With the win, DeKalb will seek to avenge its only loss of the season, a 15-14 nail biter in week one to Livingston.

The game will be played at 7:00pm this Saturday at Livingston Academy in Livingston.  Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend.

Special thanks to Richard Panker and John and Ginda Kilgore for their help with stats for the game.

Desmond Nokes rushed for 60 yards and had a 45 yard interception for DeKalb Saturday.