The Blackman Blaze punched their ticket to the second round of the TSSAA playoffs with a 24-9 victory over Gallatin on Friday night—one of the few Middle Tennessee games moved to Thursday due to weather concerns.
Defense told the story. The teams traded field goals in a 3-3 deadlock that held until 3:37 remained in the third quarter, when running back Daniel Smith capped a grinding drive with a short touchdown plunge. Moments later in the 3rd quarter, senior quarterback Javieon Elliot kept it himself on a red-zone keeper to push the lead to 17-3.
Gallatin’s offense never found rhythm. Sophomore Micah Nance hauled in a screen-pass TD but was ejected after a second unsportsmanlike conduct flag for excessive celebration. The Green Wave answered with a one-handed sideline grab by Ontaruis Scott, yet Blackman’s defense slammed the door. A late Blaze score sealed the 24-9 final.
Biggest Takeaway: This unit is playoff poison. For the second straight week, Blackman held an opponent under 10 points, forced repeated three-and-outs, and lived in the backfield. Any deep postseason run will ride on that suffocating defense.
Biggest Concern: Penalties. The Blaze racked a few flags throughout the night, including the taunting call that cost them Nance overall these are things that are fixable.
After the game I caught up with the Head Coach of the Blackman Blaze Matt Kriesky here’s what he had to say about his team's 24-9 victory over Gallatin.
“As long as I’ve been in coaching I’ve always found the first round game is one of the toughest games to play, I feel like if you get over the hump of the first round game the guys are more energized and ready to move forward as you could see Gallatin had nothing to lose tonight, they came in here ready to play and gave us a great game. I’ll be honest with you some of our guys were overlooking this game and we didn’t come out the way we should have, not going to make any excuses, it was a short week the game was moved up, it is what it is, we need to get these things corrected I’m disappointed in some of the penalties we had after tonight they hurt the team.”
I also asked about Micah Nance being ejected from the game and what the officials told him.
“Both penalties were excessive celebration so you can’t do that. I know they see that stuff on TV but it’s not something that you can do because it really hurts your team, and in High School Football you're out for the game.”
Next up the Blaze will face either Farragut or Dobyns-Bennett.
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