You Better Believe it! Tigers upset Lincoln Co. 3-0

It couldn't be any sweeter.

After two losses to Lincoln

County last year, one of the for

the state championship, and last

week's second half embarrassment

against Thomson, the Washington

Wilkes Tigers have emerged with a

new strength, a new resolve, a new character.

Practically everybody knew Lincoln County was going to win the ball game last Friday night in Lincolnton, and most of them knew it was going to be by a wide margin. What the Tigers knew was that they were all wrong. The Tigers knew that they had what it took - they had been coached to believe it - they did - and they beat Lincoln County for the upset of the year.

It was a defensive battle throughout the game as indicated by the ittybitty score of 3-0. There weren't a lot of penalties but the Tigers forced a good number of turnovers, some of them at key moments. John Lovvorn recounts the blow-by-blow in his account of the game beginning on page 8A.

In his post-game comments, W-W Head Coach Russell Morgan was guardedly excited.

"I don't care what all happened throughout the game, I'll take 3-nothing any day," he said.

"Everybody had us figured to get beat and a lot of people had us figured to get beat pretty good," he continued. "We kept preaching to the kids all

week that they had to believe it could be done and they had to have faith in one another to get it done and remain positive regardless of how bad things may go from time to time. I felt like they did that. I didn't see any finger-pointing when things got bad; they all played as hard as they could; and they came away with a win."

Morgan said he doesn't necessarily believe in the "football god" everybody talks about but maybe he wasn't so sure that the Red Devils' fumble into the end zone wasn't some kind of retaliatory gift for a bad interference call a couple of plays earlier that gave Lincoln firstand goal on the five.

That same brand of justice seemed to appear again right at the end of the game when Lincoln got an extra unexpected change to beat the Tigers. Morgan remembered, and said, "I hate that we turned the ball over with three minutes to go to give them another chance. It was Demont [Gresham] that turned it over and it was nice to see him redeem himself by intercepting the pass at the end." That interception sealed the game - conclusively.

The scoreboard shows the final score of 3-0 as the W-W Tigers celebrate on the field after beating the Red Devils in Lincoln County. At left, defensive coordinator Ed Lovvorn signals the victory at the end of the game and (lower left) Mark Tench boots the field goal that won the game. (Photos by Mercer Harris.)

"We have been in so many games with Lincolnton through the years where it looked like we had a chance to win and then right at the end something big would happen," Morgan said, thinking of several instances when it went the other way. "So many games have been decided on just one or two big plays, and when we turned it over it was, 'Here we go again' - but luckily we were able to hang on."

Overall it is true that Lincoln County had a better game stats-wise that W-W. But for all the yards, they never got the one that counted.

"The defense did a great job of holding them out of the end zone," Morgan said. "If you can hold everybody to zero, you have a good chance of winning."

GERMELL MOORE LEADS THE WAY FOR DEMONT GRESHAM This was the return of the interception that sealed the game for W-W.

On that interference call, Morgan said, "There's no way it was interference. But looking back, I'm kind of glad it was called. If it hadn't, it would have been fourth down and they probably would have kicked a field goal." That may very well have changed the entire game. But it didn't happen that way.

On defense, Morgan was especially complimentary of Khiry Tutt, whom he said "played an incredible ball game." Early in the game Red Devil Franklin Jones broke loose and was in front of everybody running for what looked like a sure touchdown. "Khiry ran him down in a hurry," Morgan said. "I didn't think he had that kind of speed. It was almost like he found another gear."

However, Morgan maintains that the Red Devils are just as good as he thought before the game. And at halftime, on the way to the dressing room, Tiger defensive coordinator Ed Lovvorn agreed. "These guys are really good!" he said.

"I still think it's one of the best Lincoln County teams I've seen," Morgan said, "and I think they are going to go 14-1 and win the state championship again this year."

Looking ahead to the coming game against Dawson County on Friday night, Morgan said the Tigers are going to start working more and more on the passing game. "We've got to be able to complete some passes," he said. "Hopefully this week and next week we can throw it a little more."

Dawson County has been plagued by injuries and Morgan is unsure about just who's going to be playing this Friday.

"They have a big defensive end that hasn't played yet this year but he's supposed to be back [to play against] us," he reported. "His name is Walls and he is 6'3" 270 and runs a 4.9 40. I think he is committed to Georgia Tech."

Otherwise, Dawson has been missing four of five players due to injuries. Their starting quarterback got hurt in the first game. "So they've been struggling," Morgan said. "But they may come here with a full team - I just don't know."

Size-wise Dawson matches up fairly closely with the Tigers but Morgan says he thinks W-W may have a little speed advantage.

"But we can't worry about the other team," he said. "We tell our kids if we just worry about what we're supposed to do, we'll be all right. I don't care what color their jerseys are - red, blue, purple, or pink - we've still got to do our job."

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