Robbinsville – Andrews will have to wait another year to get a win over the Big Three in the Smoky Mountain Conference, but the Wildcats’ day may be coming.
Undefeated Robbinsville celebrated its 14 seniors with a second game in five days Friday, as the Black Knights downed Andrews 28-7 to improve to 10-0 in advance of a meeting with Murphy.
The Wildcats are building for the future with a large group of underclassman who will be back in 2020 while several of their conference foes will lose plenty of key players.
But on this night, the Black Knights used their punishing two-headed rushing monster of Rylee Anderson and Lex Hooper to control the game from the beginning.
“I’m proud of the kids,” Andrews coach James Phillips said. “I told the kids if we had played the first half like we played the second, we would have been right there. But Robbinsville is a good football team and they whipped us, I am not taking anything away from them.”
Anderson, who dashed 68 yards on the Knights’ third offensive play for an opening touchdown, became Robbinsville’s all-time leading rusher at 5,614 yards with a 164-yard night.
“It’s amazing. I just have to thank God for allowing me to do it,” Anderson said. “I couldn’t do anything without my line, that’s the only reason I got it.”
Lex Hooper scored the next three touchdowns for the Knights, who led 21-0 at halftime and held Andrews to three first downs and 28 total yards at the break.
“I’m proud of the kids’ fight,” Phillips said. “We did not come over here to just compete, we came to win, but we did not play consistently enough in the first half.”
Having trouble running against the stout Knights front, Andrews struck through the air in the third quarter, as freshman Isaac Weaver took a pass from Tucker Holloway, dodged two tacklers and raced down the sidelines for his first varsity touchdown.
“Coming up to varsity as a group has been fun, and we’ve been getting a lot better in practice,” Weaver said of the promotion of himself and his fellow undefeated JV teammates. “(On the touchdown) Tucker gave me a good throw which made it possible.”
Weaver nearly had a second score, but he slipped near the goal line on a field saturated by two days of rain and a Monday game, leaving the pass to fall incomplete.
“We were drawing up stuff in the dirt at that point, we were trying some things,” Phillips said. “Tucker made a good throw and that could have been another touchdown for us.”
Senior night
Rosman comes to Andrews on Friday night, when Wildcat seniors Landon White, Gavin Pressley, Jose Martinez, Makhi Smith and Brawley Stillwell will be honored.
Andrews (4-6) has a chance to improve their playoff seed if they can beat the Tigers (1-9), who they have not beaten at home since 2013.