By Gary Corsair
Sports Writer
Hayesville’s resounding 56-6 thrashing of New Faith Christian Academy on Friday was like the last days of summer vacation: fun, fun, fun.
Daddy’s about to take the T-Bird away.
Life becomes downright serious for the varsity football Yellow Jackets, 4-1, when they begin the second half of the season on Friday, Sept. 29 with a trip to Murphy for the first of five consecutive Smoky Mountain Conference battles.
Yes, battles. Murphy is 3-1, Swain 4-0, Cherokee 4-1, Robbinsville 4-0 and Andrews 3-1.
“It’s going to get tougher. The conference looks really strong once again,” Hayesville Coach Chad McClure said.
The second half of Hayesville’s schedule isn’t anything like the first five games. Hayesville’s four victories came against teams with a combined record of 4-14. Three of those schools are winless.
We will soon see if Pinocchio is a real boy.
The Yellow Jackets are sure playing like the real deal, averaging 40.5 points a game, 261 yards rushing per game and 7.2 per carry as a team. Those numbers demand respect regardless of who the victims were.
“I told them, ‘It’s been a great non-conference season,’” McClure said. “Anytime you can start with a 4-1 record, that’s a good thing. A lot of years here we didn’t win four games the entire season.”
Hayesville appears to be ready for SMC play. The Yellow Jackets may not run the board, but they are poised to surprise some people.
“This is a special group of kids,” McClure said.
McClure and his staff are using this week’s bye to fine tune their already impressive machine.
“It will be a good week to work on some things,” he remarked. “I like having a schedule where we have a bye after playing five non-conference games and then playing five conference games.”
Last week’s game didn’t provide many opportunities to sharpen skills. Hayesville led 25-0 after one quarter and 35-0 at halftime as The New Faith Christian Academy Titans more or less beat themselves.
“They’re struggling. It’s only their second year in existence,” McClure said. “It was a game, that’s about it.”
The visitors to Frank R. Long Memorial Stadium repeatedly shot themselves in the foot – calf and thigh too. Two hikes over the head of the quarterback and into the end zone resulted in two safeties, which not only gave Hayesville 4 points, but required the Titans to kickoff from the 20.
Both kicks led to Hayesville touchdowns, so the self-inflicted safeties led to 18 points, not 4.
The Yellow Jackets spent most of the evening on New Faith Christian’s side of the 50-yardline. Hayesville’s first half possessions began at the Yellow Jackets’ 45 and the visitors’ 35, 37, 16, 30 and 46.
“We didn’t have a lot of long drives. We had short field about all night,” McClure remarked. “Nobody really had big statistics because we never had the ball very long.”
The most impressive stat may have been how many different Yellow Jackets – seven – reached the end zone.
• Touchdown No. 1: Seth Leek, 1-yard run. The 5-play, 55-yard drive included a 16-yard run by Taylor McClure and a 16-yard pass from Tate Roberts to Kendall Boyer.
• Touchdown No. 2: Jacob Jones, 22-yard run. Tre Graves started things off with a 24-yard free kick return.
• Touchdown No. 3: Graves, 21-yard run.
• Touchdown No. 4: McClure, 2-yard run. Hayesville took over after Yellow Jacket Kasen Chastain dumped New Faith Christian’s quarterback on fourth-and-11. Graves then carried for 14 yards. McClure hit pay dirt on the next play. Hayesville 32-0.
• Touchdown No. 5: Mauney, 23-yard run.
• Touchdown No. 6: Slade Crouch, 11-yard run.
• Touchdown No. 7: Cole Vining, 31-yard run.
Hayesville also had a kid kick a long field goal. Isaac Chandler split the uprights from 44 yards out, which was 2 yards longer than the school record his coach set when McClure played, but 2 yards shy of the existing school record of 46 yards set by Shaun Tant in 2009.
Chandler also nailed 6 extra-point attempts, which pushed his season total to 27-of-27.
Vining led Hayesville’s rushing attack with 58 yards on six carries. McClure had 46 yards on six tries. Graves averaged 17.0 on two carries. Mauney 16.0 on his two hauls.
E.J. Abrams was top in tackles with five. He also filled in admirably at offensive guard for Ethan McGuffee, who was nursing a back injury.