Tigers get late touchdown to defeat Westwood

Hardin County rallied from a 20-13 halftime deficit to defeat the Westwood Longhorns last Friday night. The Tigers got a touchdown in the third quarter to pull within one point and added the game-winning score in the fourth quarter.

The Tigers had handled Westwood pretty easily in each of the first three years of this series. However, the Longhorns are much improved and Tiger head coach William McAdams knew they were going to be facing a team that was much better than in the previous three years. “We were able to get a victory against a good football team. They were solid both offensively and defensively. The toughest thing to stop was their team speed. We were able to make some adjustments with our angles as the game went on and did a better job at stopping them. It’s hard to prepare for speed. You can’t just practice that,” said McAdams.

The Tigers were able to do a much better job in the final two quarters. The Hardin County defense held Westwood off the scoreboard in the final two quarters and gave their offense an opportunity to get back in the game. Westwood scored the first points of the game on their opening possession. Their touchdown came on a 62-yard play to give Hardin County their first deficit of the season at 7-0.

The Tigers quickly responded with a scoring drive of their own that was culminated with a 6-yard pass from Barker Burnham to Steven Rich. Eddie Espinoza added the PAT to tie the game at 7-7 midway through the first quarter. Westwood came right back to score the next two touchdowns. After taking a 20-7 lead on a 32-yard interception return for a score, Hardin County got back to within one score. Coty Eanes scored on a 26-yard run to cut the lead to 20-13 at halftime.

Eanes scored his second touchdown of the game late in the third quarter. Burnham connected with the senior wideout on a 42-yard scoring strike. The extra-opint attempt was no good to put the score at 20-19 in favor of Westwood.

After the defense came up with yet another stop against the Longhorn offense, Hardin County put together what proved to be the game-winning drive. Burnham and Rich connected on their second touchdown of the game on an 18-yard pass play to put the Tigers on top for good. Burnham ran in the 2-point conversion attempt to give the Tigers a 27-20 advantage.

The Tiger defense stuck together to make one final stop to seal the victory. Espinoza picked up an interception late in the fourth quarter to finish off the win for the Tigers. Burnham completed 8-of-16 passes for 109 yards and three touchdowns in the game. Eanes had 58 yards receiving and Rich had a total of 34 yards receiving. Daniel Avila rushed for 121 yards on 18 carries.

Rich was the leader on the defensive side of the ball with 19 total tackles. Dakotah McFerson was second with nine total stops. Josh Ivey had seven tackles and Stephen Gobbell chipped in with six total tackles. Slava Cherniatiev also contributed with five total tackles in the game against Westwood.

The Tigers improved to 4-0 with their win over Westwood last week. On a similar note, the Hardin County junior varsity football team also picked up a 28-6 win over Tishomingo County last week.