By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–‘Finish’ was the operative word following Union City’s 58-16 season-opening loss to highly-touted Lake County Friday night.
“It’s a little downer to lose your first game, sure. But it doesn’t matter how you start, it’s how you finish the season,” veteran Tornado head coach Darren Bowling said following his team’s large-margin defeat.
“We lost to a really good football team, but if we’d have finished our drives, we were right there with them.”
UC, in fact, saw five drives die inside the Falcon 25-yard line – four on downs, the other via a turnover.
“’Finish’ is something we’ve stressed all during the preseason and not doing that bit us again tonight,” Bowling added. “They didn’t do anything different on fourth down, they just dug in. We moved the ball up and down the field the whole night until we got in the red zone.
“We knew coming in this would probably be an offensive game because of the amount of experience Lake County had coming back on offense from their state semifinal team last season. I thought we matched them, for the most part, until we got down there close.”
The Tornadoes indeed piled up huge rushing numbers, totaling 384 yards, led by fullback Justin Wiggins (199) and quarterback Sam Theobald (122) — both of whom scored touchdowns.
But a big-play Lake County attack repeatedly gashed Union City on the edges, especially running back Larry Tubbs, who regularly dashed around the end and into the clear for 286 yards and five TDs on just eight carries. Tubbs also tacked on three two-point conversions.
He had scoring runs of 49, 51, 61, 75 and 36 yards.
The last of Tubbs’ scores came with just four seconds to play as the Falcons played several of their offensive starters to the final horn, despite the mercy rule and a running clock being in effect.
Quarterback Tanner Snyder, a load at 6-4, 235, tacked on 74 yards, but did more damage by throwing for 121 yards and two touchdowns. Easily the most important of those scores came when he hit Keyshon Gross on a 62-yard TD play with just three seconds left before halftime after UC had closed what once was a three-touchdown deficit to 32-16 with just 14 ticks showing before intermission.
Theobald dashed 70 yards to paydirt on a QB keeper with just over four minutes gone in the second quarter to get the Purple and Gold on the scoreboard. Wiggins, who like Theobald missed much of the preseason due to injury, then capped a 14-play, 63-yard drive with a four-yard scoring burst to help UC reach the endzone on back-to-back possessions.
Travon Westbrook added the two-point conversions following both touchdowns.
But LC, which scored on all five of its first-half possessions and eight of 10 in all, reached the endzone for 20 points after the intermission while holding Union City scoreless.
Wiggins had a handful of powerful runs on which he charged forward and gave extra effort for the Tornadoes. He also gained 10 or more yards on six carries, his biggest being a 50-yarder in the first quarter.
Bowling was quick to point out afterward that one game doesn’t make or break a season.
“All we can do is go back to work and put in the time and effort to get better,” the coach insisted. “My job is to put the guys in position to succeed and excel and we’ll watch film and make adjustments after our evaluation period.
“I like my guys. Even though the results weren’t what we wanted, they didn’t put their heads down and they never stopped playing hard. We have what we have personnel-wise, and the main thing is for us to not stop preparing and getting better.”
Carson Corley topped the UC tackle chart with four stops.
The Tornadoes will play their first home game of the season next Friday when they host Martin Luther King (Memphis) High School.
Lake Co. 58, Union City 16
Union City 0 16 0 0 — 16
Lake County 16 22 14 6 — 58
LC — Larry Tubbs 49 run (Tubbs run). 8:21, 1st
LC — Cayden Puckett 81 run (Tubbs run). 3:06, 1st
LC — Keyshon Gross 12 pass from Tanner Snyder (Tubbs run). 8:09, 2nd
UC — Sam Theobald 70 run (Travon Westbrook run). 7:43, 2nd
LC — Tubbs 51 run (Snyder run). 4:58, 2nd
UC — Justin Wiggins 4 run (Westbrook run). 0:14, 2nd
LC — Gross 62 pass from Snyder (run failed). 0:03, 2nd
LC — Tubbs 61 run (run failed). 11:47, 3rd
LC — Tubbs 75 run (Gross conversion pass from Snyder). 6:15, 3rd
LC — Tubbs 36 run (run failed). 0:04, 4th
UC LC
Total Offense 384 568
Rush Att.-Yards 57-384 19-442
Comp.-Att.-Int 0-1-1 7-12-0
First Downs 14 12
Punts-Avg. 1-44 1-40
Fumbles-Lost 2-0 0-0
Penalties-Yds. 1-5 3-15
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
RUSHING: Union City — Justin Wiggins 28-199, Sam Theobald 17-122, Travon Westbrook 4-46, Kyrell Littleton 6-15, Wes Tilghman 2-2. Lake County — Larry Tubbs 8-286, Cayden Puckett 2-82, Tanner Snyder 9-74.
PASSING: Union City — Sam Theobald 0-1-1—0. Lake County — Tanner Snyder 6-11-0—122, Cayden Puckett 1-1–4.
RECEIVING: Union City — None. Lake County — Keyshon Gross 3-112, Justin Morgan 3-13, Miguel Abbott 1-1.
RECORDS: Union City 0-1; Lake County 1-0.
NEXT GAME: UC hosts Martin Luther King of Memphis, Friday at 7 p.m.
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