Shock and awe: ‘Perfect’ half sparks Ringgold
You could attend high school football games for the rest of your life and not see what the Ringgold High Homecoming crowd witnessed Friday – a perfect half of football.
The Tigers, coming off one of the most stunning upset losses in recent memory, smacked down the visiting Murray County Indians with a 42-point first half in which junior quarterback Cole Kibler completed all 17 of his pass attempts and his teammates played penalty-free, turnoverfree football.
Those throws, many flung far downfield, led to 282 first-half yards and five of his eventual six touchdown passes in a 54-28 romp that put the Tigers back on track for postseason play.
“We came in last Sunday and we challenged them,” head coach Robert Akins said. “We talked about two things - performance and accountability. But as well as we played, I was a little disappointed in our second half. We still haven’t put two good halves together.”
Kibler would go on to complete his first 19 attempts, and then for good measure completed his final six while breaking the school’s single-game yardage record with 496 on a precision 29-of-34 showing.
“A lot of things went into him having a night like that,” said Akins, himself taken back at Kibler’s numbers, “We were not very good last week so we did some quarterback drills that Coach (Houston) White helped us with. We worked on him moving around in the pocket and throwing under pressure. He also watched a lot of film – even though they came out in a completely different defense than we were expecting.
“I think that preparation helped him keep his emotions under control. He was a completely different player tonight than he was last week.”
It didn’t take long for Kibler to establish his dominance. Following a defensive stop on fourth down at midfield, he limbered up his strong right arm with a streak route to the fleetfooted Andre Tarver, who snared the bomb in stride for a 45-yard score with less than three minutes gone in the game.
Before the first quarter was over, the Tigers had established a 21-0 lead on a Kibler 2-yard plunge and a letter-perfect post pattern covering 33 yards that Tarver snared over his shoulder a stride before stepping out of bound.
“It was beautiful, wasn’t it?” Akins grinned. “What it reminded me of was Andre playing centerfield, going back to catch a fly ball.”
Tarver, an All-State in both sports, added a 1-yard touchdown catch on a quick slant in the second period and finished the game with seven catches for 129 yards.
But Tarver was hardly alone in enjoying Kibler’s career night. Junior Pete Brower, named a captain by Akins earlier in the week, also caught seven passes good for 98 yards. His 13-yard scoring grab with five minutes
left in the half opened up an improbable 35-0 lead that sealed the deal early. Also catching touchdown passes were Ty Jones (12 yards) and Dylan Wright (9 yards), while Joey Collins joined Kibler in running touchdowns.
A tip of the hat also went the way of kicker Garrett Davis. In addition to converting 6-of-8 PAT’s (one was blocked), he planted all nine of his kickoffs into the end zone for automatic touchbacks.
Murray County had its own touchdown machine in operation. Tucker Gregg, who steamrolled Ringgold
for 323 yards and four touchdowns in Murray’s upset win a year ago, was bottled up for the first quarter Friday.
But from that point on, he once again resembled the back that was on the verge of posting 4,000 career yards in his sterling career.
While the Tribe never got any closer
than the final score, Gregg ran free in the fourth quarter and finished with 271 yards and touchdown runs of 4, 22 and 28 yards. Gregg came into the game just 20 yards shy of 1,000 for the season.
The Tigers (4-3, 1-1) have a vital game with North Murray next week in their final road game of the season.