NEW BALLGAME
Warriors’ turnaround now includes Region 4-2A title
JASPER, Tenn. — In typical teenage fashion, the gravity of what they had just accomplished was mostly lost on the kids in the sweatsoaked purple-and-black Marion County football jerseys.
But judging by the wide smiles among the graybeards — the former players standing along the fence behind the home sideline and packed into the bleachers — they understood the significance.
Led by a defense that has been rock solid all season and an offense capable of breaking hearts and big plays on any snap, state-ranked No. 2 Marion County capped the program’s first 10-0 regular season in nearly 30 years with a resounding 42-9 Region 4-2A victory over visiting Cascade on Friday night.
Not only is it the first unbeaten regular season since 1995 (which was also the last of the Warriors’ four state championship seasons) and their first region title since 2016 (which was the last time they appeared in a state title game), it also culminated one of the Chattanooga area’s biggest turnarounds from last season.
Just one year after losing its final regular-season game to miss out on the TSSAA playoffs, Marion has earned the right to potentially host at least the first two rounds of the postseason.
“It rubbed us raw last year with how we finished, and we knew we had something to prove,” Warriors coach Tim
Starkey said. “I’ll be honest, it took a lot of faith to get to this point, because it would’ve been easy to not work as hard as we did all offseason to get here.
“It’s not been pretty every week, but we’ve been getting it done. Now we’re 10-0, something that hasn’t been done since 1995.”
An early fumble deep in its own territory led to Marion falling behind 3-0 early. However, the Warriors countered with 27 unanswered points before halftime to take control on their way to their fourth and final region win.
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Sophomore speedster Ashton Martin kick-started the offense with a 61-yard touchdown sprint that put Marion ahead to stay. Sam Pickett and E.J. Wilson followed with short scoring runs before quarterback Tilton Pickett connected with a wide-open Luke Tipton on a 50-yard touchdown strike and a commanding 27-3 lead at the break.
“We run that play a lot in practice, and it’s one that we knew would work coming into this game,” said Martin, who also had a sack and a tackle for loss on defense to go with 67 rushing yards. “Coach Starkey trusted me with the ball, so when it got in my hands, I just took off.
“Once we got the lead, we just wanted to keep coming, and we knew our defense could carry us, too, because that’s what has turned us around from 5-5 to undefeated and region champions. This is a great feeling.”
Other than a short scoring drive to begin the second half, Cascade (5-5, 2-2) rarely moved the ball on a Marion defense that has yet to give up more than 15 points all season. The Warriors outgained Cascade 317-121 in total yards, led by Brody Leonard’s 102 rushing yards and two touchdowns, Wilson’s 68 yards on the ground and Tilton Pickett’s 83 yards passing, while the defense forced 52 yards in lost yardage.
“Defense has carried us for the most part all season,” Starkey said. “They’ve carried our offense when we struggled, and I appreciate how hard those guys play.
“Ashton is just a ballplayer. He makes an impact on both sides for us, and that run he had was really big to get us going.
“I said at the beginning of the year, we’ve got so much talent on this team and so many guys who can run that we could be tough to deal with. We’ve proven that through the regular season, and now we’ve got to just keep doing it all over in the playoffs.”
Marion County will host Westmoreland (5-5) in the opening round of the playoffs.