Up next for Murphy is Robbinsville matchup
Hayesville – Murphy football never got going Friday night.
The Bulldogs were called for 15 penalties, struggled to get off the field on defense, and never put the Yellow Jackets away. Despite that, Murphy left Clay County with a 21-14 win.
“It was a weird game,” head coach Joseph Watson said.
The Bulldogs (5-2 overall, 2-0 Smoky Mountain Conference) accumulated 398 yards of offense, with Cole Laney completing 10 of 14 passes for 155 yards and Hunter Stalcup running for 168 yards and two touchdowns.
That production usually signals a great night for Murphy, but the penalties and some stalled drives held them back. Most of the Bulldogs’ penalties came on offense.
“A lot of those penalties were things you gotta clean up,” Watson said. “Some holding penalties and just some undisciplined penalties that we have to do a better job of fixing.”
On defense, Murphy got stops when it needed to but let Hayesville (4-3, 0-2) control the game. The Yellow Jackets won the time of possession battle by eight minutes, and the Bulldogs never quite contained Hayesville quarterback Logan Caldwell, who completed seven of 10 passes for 111 yards, plus ran for 41 yards and a touchdown.
“We knew he was going to get out of the pocket and make some plays, and he did, and he just kept converting on third down,” Watson said of Caldwell. “They just kept the ball and continued to get first downs and that’s something we got to stop. Defense the previous week, three out of the four first possessions were three and out, and that’s kind of a good recipe.”
Despite the struggles, Murphy jumped out to a 14-0 lead. Hunter Stalcup ran for a
35-yard touchdown to get the Bulldogs on the board with 2:54 to go in the first quarter, and a 1-yard run by Laney on a quarterback sneak extended the lead to 14-0 with 6:54 to go in the second quarter.
Still, it could’ve been a bigger lead if not for an opening drive fumble and a missed field goal near the end of the first half. Hayesville got on the board with 55 seconds to go in the second quarter. Caldwell hit Kyle Lunsford, and a Murphy defender whiffed on a tackle as Lunsford sprinted to a 38-yard touchdown.
The Bulldogs stopped a long Hayesville drive to start the second half, but their offense remained in a rut until the fourth quarter. In that frame, Wyatt Simmons picked off Caldwell and returned the ball back to the Hayesville three, and Stalcup scored on the next play to extend the lead to 21-7 with 6:51 to go. Caldwell brought the Yellow Jackets back within a score with a four-yard touchdown scramble with 47 seconds left.
Murphy knows it must be better next week, when it travels to Robbinsville (6-1, 2-0). The two teams have battled for conference supremacy for almost a decade, though the Black Knights have won five of the last six meetings, including in the regular season and fourth round of the state playoffs last year.
Like the Bulldogs, Robbinsville is coming off a disappointing win, trailing Cherokee 7-0 in the third quarter before scoring 30 unanswered points in a 30-13 win. Murphy beat Cherokee 49-14 the previous week. The Black Knights are also dealing with key injuries. Starting fullback/linebacker Kage Williams has missed all season after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery, and starting quarterback Donovan Carpenter broke his collarbone against the Braves.
Robbinsville still has star junior running back Cuttler Adams, who has already run for 1,200 yards this year after running for 2,193 last season.
“You’re going to have to know where he’s at at all times,” Watson said of Adams. “Especially with their quarterback going down last week. He’s going to be their guy.”