RISING SUN TIGERS FOOTBALL

Tigers plagued by miscues, big plays in streak-snapping loss to Joppatowne

By Victor Hensley

JOPPATOWNE - Rising Sun was five yards away from making it a game against Joppatowne last Friday night, but its own mistakes kept getting in the way.

In the second quarter, the Tigers found themselves down 22-7 with the ball on the 5-yardline and less than a minute to play.

But, as would become an unfortunate trend for Cecil County’s hottest team, an offensive offside penalty stunted their momentum, knocked them back five yards and forced them to kick a field goal to make it 22-10 at the break.

Miscues like those were abundant for the Tigers (5-3), who fell to the smooth-sailing Mariners (7-1), 44-25, on the backs of a big offensive night for some of their top skill players.

“I think we jumped offsides in our first offensive drive like two or three times,” said Clem Vaughan, the Tigers’ head coach.

“We can’t win with first-and-15, first-and-20, that kind of stuff, so that’s what stalled us. Our mantra is, ‘Nobody stops us, we stop ourselves.’ … You can't come in on the road, playing a good team like this and make these mistakes. It's a lesson learned.”

With Joppatowne’s last loss having come on Sept. 9 against Perryville – going 5-0 in the five weeks leading up to its date against Rising Sun, out-pacing the Tigers’ own four-game winning streak – the Tigers knew that shutting the Mariners down would be a Goliath-sized task.

And, it didn’t take long for them to find out why, as the Mariners scored on their first two offensive drives to capture an early 14-0 lead that’d only bloom larger as the game went on.

Joppatowne senior running back Steven Robinson had a field day against the Tigers, registering his second-straight week with over 200 rushing yards as he carried the ball 14 times for 224 yards (16 yards per carry) and found the end zone three times on the ground.

“I said it all week, that it was going to be hard to tackle (Robinson), that we were going to have to get three or four guys on him,” said Vaughan. “At times, we had one in the backfield on him, and he’d juke them and move and, next thing you know, he’s 15-20 yards downfield.”

Having an equally impres- sive day was Mariners quarterback Anthony Wilson, who completed 15-of-20 passes (75%) for 298 yards and three touchdowns.

On the flip side, Tigers senior quarterback Gannon Russell still managed to find the end zone twice on the ground in the loss.

Rising Sun actually cut it to a one-possession game in the third quarter after a fake punt by senior Caleb Leffew resulted in a 40-yard touchdown to make it 2217, but the Mariners came right back with a touchdown of their own and wouldn’t stop there, scoring 22 points in the second half to put the Tigers away, 44-25.

“We hit a fake punt for about a 40-yard touchdown … and it seemed like three plays later, they were in the end zone, so it was 30-17,” said Vaughan with a laugh. “We just couldn't match the speed of their scores.”

The Tigers finish off their regular season with The Battle of 272 rivalry game against the North East Indians (1-7) this Friday, which has major implications for postseason home-field advantage. The Mariners, on the other hand, take on the Patterson Mill Huskies (7-1) on the road for their finale.

Just a few plays after yet another three-and-out by the Warriors, Gunter took the handoff from junior quarterback Ty Patchell and sliced through the middle of the field, weaving and slipping through the arms of defender-after-defender. By the time he reached the end zone, Gunter had broken four separate tackles – including a brutal stiff-arm at the goal line – to cap off a 30-yard touchdown run and increase Perryville’s lead to 14-0.

“I stiff-armed someone, apparently,” said Gunter with a laugh after the win, “and then I started stumbling … and I was like, ‘I can’t go down at the 1(-yardline),’ so I dove into the end zone.”