ANDERSON COUNTY wins first-ever Class 4A BlueCross Bowl Championship, 34-30, over Pearl-Cohn

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BY JESSE SMITHEY

CHATTANOOGA — Walker Martinez executed the Victory Formation to perfection Saturday afternoon at Finley Stadium and then turned toward the Anderson County fans and heaved the football as high into the air as his right arm would allow, the senior quarterback not having to care — for the first time in his career — where the ball landed.

The game was over.

The season was over.

And he and Anderson County were state champions … for the first time in school history.

Martinez threw for 219 yards and three touchdowns while the backfield tandem of Gavin Noe and Nick Moog combined for 253 yards and two scores, as Anderson County knocked off Pearl-Cohn 34-30 in the Class 4A BlueCross Bowl state championship.

The Mavericks (15-0) fell behind 14-0 in the first two minutes of the game. But rallied in the second half, and Bryson Vowell’s interception of a Pearl-Cohn pass in the final seconds sealed the win for state-final rookie Anderson County.

Gavin Noe, a senior running back and Navy commit, earned BlueCross Bowl MVP honors with 30 carries, 138 yards and a touchdown. He had the go-ahead touchdown in the second half, and his determined hard-nosed running in the fourth quarter helped AC milk clock after Moog (knee) left the game with an injury in the final minute of the third.

Vowell played big all game, as well. He hauled in seven catches for 86 yards and two touchdowns. Still, one of the area’s most sure-handed players called that game-clinching interception one of the more difficult footballs to come down with.

Anderson County was clinging to a 34-30 lead with 23 seconds left Saturday. On fourth-and-5 at the Pearl-Cohn 37, Anderson County elected to go for it, instead of punting. Pearl-Cohn got the stop.

And the Firebirds (12-3), who had hit on two 80-yard touchdown passes earlier in the contest, had 18 seconds left to go just 63 yards to try and get the program’s first state title since 1997.

But on Pearl-Cohn’s first play, its quarterback went deep and into quadruple coverage. The ball floated and wound up under thrown.

Vowell soared up into the pass’ vicinity.

“It felt like I was jumping and having to grab for the ball about 10 feet in the air,” said Vowell. “It finally went down. I got the slide down after I caught it, and the place went crazy.”

Good fortune like that didn’t happen for AC in the early going.

Trailing 24-20 coming out of the half, Anderson County couldn’t manufacture a switch in momentum in the opening 5 minutes of the third. And it certainly didn’t look like much would come the Mavericks’ way after a Pearl-Cohn punt was downed at the AC 1-yard line at the 6-minute, 45-second mark of the quarter.

But a 34-yard run by Moog, a 15-yard jaunt by Noe and a targeting call on Pearl-Cohn ushered the Mavericks into the red zone.

Martinez, though, lobbed a pass downfield to a back that had too much air under it.

Pearl-Cohn intercepted it and preserved its four-point margin with 2:22 remaining in the third.

“It was a scramble drill. One of my receivers cut one way. I threw it the other way. It was a bad play by me,” said Martinez. “But, the defense had my back. We got the stop, and we were able to put it in on the next drive.”

The Firebirds gifted the ball back to Anderson County only 46 seconds later, and linebacker Andrew Meier recovered the Pearl-Cohn fumble inside the Firebirds 10.

Four plays later, Noe carried it in on fourth-and-goal from the 1 for Anderson County’s first lead of the game — 27-24, with 44 seconds left.

Anderson County pushed its lead to 34-24 with 8:49 remaining on a 16-yard touchdown pass from Martinez to Vowell, the 6-4 receiving leaping up in the back-center of the end zone and reeling in the pass against two defenders.

“He’s my best friend. Best receiver in the state. I don’t care what anybody says,” Martinez said of Vowell. “He’s a huge part in our success as a team.”

But just like Pearl-Cohn started the game, the Firebirds connected on an 80-yard touchdown pass, using their speed advantage to dust the AC secondary that was giving chase. The PAT failed, however, and Anderson County led 34-30 with 8:36 to go.

Pearl-Cohn then forced an Anderson County punt with 5:12 left to play.

Anderson County returned the favor two minutes later, as the Firebirds chose to punt on fourth-and-14 at its own 31 with a little more than 3 minutes left on the clock.

The Mavericks worked the clock to its advantage and closed in on the title.

“We don’t like it easy,” said Anderson County coach Davey Gillum, the head coach at AC since 2009. “We came out and started the game like we’d never played before.

“We did know (Pearl-Cohn) was athletic and liked to be aggressive early. … but whether or not we came back and fought was not going to be a question for us.”

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Pearl-Cohn couldn’t have bought a better start.

It hit on an 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of the game. The Mavericks fumbled the ensuing kickoff, and the Firebirds turned it into a four-play, 24-yard scoring drive capped by a 1-yard touchdown run.

Just 73 seconds in, and Anderson County trailed 14-0.

The Mavericks didn’t fold — rather, they got even. They constructed eight- and nine-play scoring drives in the latter half of the first quarter to knot the score at 14-all.

Martinez hit Vowell on a 3-yard touchdown pass for score No. 1.

Moog’s 1-yard run punctuated the second scoring drive.

Anderson County just couldn’t limit Pearl-Cohn’s downfield big-play ability, and Pearl-Cohn QB Keshawn Tarleton tossed a deftly thrown pass to D’Arious Reed, who hauled it in with one hand at the goal line for a touchdown and 21-14 lead. Reed had the opening 80-yard catch, as well. He reached the half with 167 yards on five receptions.

Martinez threw his second touchdown pass of the half with 4:11 remaining before the break, finding Eli Davis over the top on a fourth-and-6 play from the Pearl-Cohn 11. Martinez properly motioned the fake toss to the left, and the Pearl-Cohn defense bit on it, leaving Davis alone up the seam into the end zone.

The PAT failed. Pearl-Cohn preserved a lead (21-20) and then its unheralded kicking game barely made a 34-yard field goal as time expired in the second quarter, the Firebirds capitalizing on pass-interference call on Anderson County in the final seconds.

But the final seconds of the second half all belonged to the Mavericks.

“It’s just overwhelming emotionally,” said Gillum. “There are so many great programs in East Tennessee: the Alcoas, the Marvyilles, the Greenevilles, the Elizabethtons. For a rural school like ours, to climb that ladder to get to where we are, I don’t know that a lot of people can appreciate it the way we can. Because we’ve been close to being an upper-echelon program for a very long time.

“So many groups before this one have poured in the blood and the sweat and the tears. And this one has just picked up and this one has more talent overall. And we’ve gotten over the hump. But knowing that as their coach and being part of that as a player and knowing the community and knowing they’re playing for themselves, their brothers and the community, it’s overwhelming.”