By Gaylen Duskey
realfang@citlink.net
Calhoun Middle School Coach Chuck Hicks and his staff reached into their bag of tricks early in the game and came away with a pair of quick touchdowns and a new offensive weapon in a 26-8 win over Wirt.
The Red Devils, 3-4, tried a bit of trickery on the first play from scrimmage and it worked - in a big way. What the Red Devils did was toss the ball to Seth Moore on what appeared to be a toss sweep play only to have the hard-charging eight grader pull up short and loft a pass to Jakob Holcomb who had beaten the Wirt secondary. The result was a 70-yard touchdown pass.
A little later the Red Devils faked Moore into the line and tossed it out to Holcomb who proceeded to race 74 yards for another score.
The Red Devils went back to its "normal" offense after that and came away with two more touchdowns - both by Moore - en route to the easy win.
Moore's scoring runs came from 28 and 26 yards away.
Before pulling Moore and virtually every other starter at the end of the third period the Red Devils had the game wrapped up and Wirt's only score came with :30.5 seconds when the Tigers first team was able to push the ball into the end zone against the Calhoun reserves.
But before that Moore and Holcomb proved to be a dangerous 1-2 punch.
Moore led Calhoun with 151 yards on 12 carries while Holcomb added 145, also on 12 carries.
Calhoun had 205 yards rushing and 84 yards passing fro 289 yards total offense compared to a meager 45 yards total offense by the Tigers, 2-5.
As impressive as the Red Devils offense was the defense was maybe even more impressive as it held Wirt to virtually nothing before the Tigers got on the board late in the game against the reserves.
But Wirt may not even have scored at all if the referees hadn't whistled the ball dead on a Wirt fumble that Christopher Kirkland recovered at the Calhoun 40 with time running down. That fast whistle gave Wirt a short field and its starters were able to get the ball into the end zone against the Calhoun reserves. Nathan Murray's one-yard run put Wirt on the board and Dakotah Richards' extra point run set the final score.
Connor Ritchie, who had his first reception of the season on offense, led the defense with 17 tackles including three sacks of the Wirt quarterback. Moore added nine tackles while Sam Poore had seven (including three sacks) as did Chris Thornton and Trevor Lynch.
Calhoun will try to get its record to .500 on the season when it closes out the campaign next Thursday night at home against Walton. It is "eighth grade" night and all the eighth grade players and their parents will be recognized before the game.
| 
