(FREE) Coweta Avenges Playoff Loss, Beating McGuinness 35-28

Bryce McKinnis

August 28, 2021 @ 09:43 AM

Each team traded a score throughout the game, with Coweta scoring first three minutes in the game and McGuinness promptly following suit. The Tigers had a particularly difficult time containing McGuinness’s , who tallied 189 yards on the ground Friday night. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that either team notched an unanswered score, when late in the fourth quarter, Na’Kylan Starks took a counter play 56 yards to the house and established a two-score lead for the Tigers. Although River Warren and the Irish followed up with an astute, if not heroic, 89-yard scoring in the final two minutes, it proved too little, too late against the Tigers.

PLAYER OF THE GAME

Na’Kylan Starks | 5’11" ATH | Coweta ’23

It was about whoever scored last Friday night, or even whoever scored first, but both of those scores were from Starks, who tallied two touchdowns on the ground, one through the air, and an interception Friday night, playing an all-around stellar game. Starks also had a few long plays in which the junior showed off his wheels, including a 59-yard kickoff return following McGuinness’s first touchdown. His first score of the night came seconds after forcing a turnover on McGuinness’s first drive, when the athletic junior intuitively broke down on a hitch and met the ball before hitting its target, setting the Tigers up inside the Irish red zone only seconds into the game. A few plays into Coweta’s first possession of the season, Starks struck first on an elusive, slithery run on a well-crafted 12-yard reverse play from Coweta coach Tim Harper to give the Tigers their initial lead, which McGuinness no more than equaled the remaining 45 minutes of game clock. His second score came when Starks jumped to meet a toss out of his break on a curl route, equally well-timed by Hamm and impressively grasped by Starks. Starks’s scored his final touchdown of the night with a 28-21 lead and 5:56 left on the clock, when he broke loose on a 56-yard touchdown run almost untouched, showing off his burners on his way to the end zone.

QUOTABLE

Starks and Harper on Coweta’s next-play mentality Between Starks’ first and second touchdowns, the junior committed a notable folly. On a fourth-and-ten from the McGuinness 17-yard line, Harper elected to go for it on a trick play: a pitch from Hamm to junior athlete , then a high-spiraling front-shoulder throw-and-catch to Starks into the end zone. Starks ran his route untouched as his defender bit on the pitch, and he was apparently free with a lofty, soft ball came falling into his chest for what should have been an easy score, but the sunlight interfered with his vision of the ball as it fell between Starks’ hands and onto the end zone grass, causing a turnover that game McGuinness the ball back. “We just got a saying, which is ‘so what, now what?’ You know, you make mistakes, so what, now what? Next play, we’re working," Starks said. “Our guys made a promise a long time ago that we’re playing 48 minutes no matter what the scoreboard says. When we make a bad play, or something goes against us, it’s so what, now what?" Harper said. This attitude proved to be fortuitous for the Tigers and Starks, whose two game-defining touchdown plays after his first-quarter mistake led to Coweta’s win. “We made some bad plays, we made some great plays, but we’ve got a great team, and it’s got a chance to get a lot better, too,” Harper said.