Elkin – For the second straight year, an Andrews-Elkin playoff game followed a familiar script. The Wildcats came slow out of the gate, putting them one step behind the Elks all Friday night in a 35-28 loss.
“We just made too many mistakes in the first half,” Andrews head coach James Phillips said. “Against a good football team 250 miles from home, that will get your butt whipped.”
Phillips thought his team would be better prepared to handle Elkin this year. He knew they could handle the four-hour bus ride, and his team came into the game thinking they could compete and come out with a victory. Though Elkin jumped out to a 14-0 lead, Andrews (4-3 overall) was able to keep the game within striking distance the rest of the way. The Wildcats never led, but also never trailed by less than 14 points.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a group of kids play that hard in the second half to try to come back and win,” Phillips said. “And we were a couple plays away from being able to do that.”
That’s what made the slow start so frustrating. Andrews committed four turnovers in the first half, shooting itself in the foot in a game which Phillips thought was pretty even otherwise. An interception inside its own 10-yard line was picked off and ran back by a defensive lineman for the Elks’ first touchdown. Then the Wildcats were intercepted on their second drive, but Elkin (6-1) missed a field goal.
Even when Andrews could come up with a big play, they couldn’t capitalize. Later in the first half after another interception the Wildcats came up with one of their own and fumbled on the return, giving the ball back to the Elks immediately after forcing the turnover.
“We had too many turnovers,” Phillip said. “That’s what really got us whipped. We lost the turnover battle.”
Andrews narrowed the deficit to seven multiple times, but Elkin continued to punch back and extend the lead. After the Wildcats cut the lead to 28-20, the Elks returned the ball to Andrews 30-yard line and scored. Andrews answered back, then held Elkin on its next drive to set up one last chance to win the game.
The drive started with less than two minutes to go, and the Wildcats had to burn their last timeout early in the drive. Despite struggling to pass for much of the game, Andrews advanced the ball to the Elks’ 10-yard line before being tackled by a loss on the next play. That set up one final play, a pass that was knocked down in the end zone.
The loss ended a historic season for Andrews, which won four Smoky Mountain Conference games for the first time since 1985 and finished third in the league. In Phillips’ fifth year in charge of the program, he said they have established a good culture of playing hard and believing they can win every game.
With a strong group of seniors moving on, it’ll be time for the next group of Andrews players to keep the program’s forward momentum going.
“There’s lot of things we’re going to be able to reference back to and use as a stepping board,” Phillips said. “I hope that these kids will put in the work here in the offseason to continue to advance the program.”