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The Ravenwood Raptors finished it off last night with the 6A Tennessee Football championship.  Last year they were beaten by one in overtime on the extra point conversion.  That ending, and the sick feeling it left everyone on the team and those connected to it, was the drive to get back to Cookeville and get the championship that they were an eyelash from achieving.  All season this year, getting back and finishing was the target.   Pretty simple goal, but incredibly hard to achieve. 

The object of their quest was Maryville Rebels.   Mayville has been in the championship game for 7 straight years.  They have won 4 and lost to Hillsboro, Whitehaven and now Ravenwood.  Maryville is expected to be in the championship game and are expected to be good.  They were rated # 1 in Tennessee this year and 18 th in the USA Today school national rankings.   They are expected to win, that is just how it works.    Ravenwood knew all that and were ready, what a great game.  

Ravenwood had won all season with a defense that was just a stone wall in the second half of games, incredible kicking teams, aggressive coaching and a gutsy running game.    Guess what, it happened again last night.  Ravenwood got the first score with a field goal by Crews Holt who was the Titan's Mr. Football kicker (high school) this last season.  Crews finished the game 4 of 5 in field goal kicking and the offensive MVP award for the championship game.  This guy is that good. Maryville then started to take control and had a 10 to 3 lead with a lot of momentum and we needed a play.  Ravenwood was looking a little flat and it appeared that their energy was starting to wane--you could feel a little doubt creeping in.   Chris Rowland put the Raptors back in the game with an electric swing pass touchdown.  Too much speed and he was in the endzone with a 65 yarder.  The energy came back in a big hurry!!   Maryville scored again to make it a 17-10 game.   Near the end of the half the sophomore quarterback for Maryville made a couple of mistakes.  He was a 70% passer and their leader rusher coming into the game and was their offensive star.  Ravenwood defense forced some turnovers and by the half the Raptors had managed to take the lead with another FG and half back option pass from Rowland to score a TD and take a 20-17 lead!!   Maryville had not trailed at the half all season.  How would the Rebels respond??

Raptors started the half with the ball first and scored another field goal to have a precarious 6 point lead.   Now, it was the second half, and time for defense to show the way.   The defense shut out Mayville the rest of the way.  They got two picks, forced a lot of punts and just made life miserable for the quarterback.   The 36 seniors on Ravenwood could smell the blood in the water and were going to finish the deal.. and they did!!   Another late Crews Holt field goal and it was over.   Redemptions was the Raptors.  They went after the champions and took it, what a great way to finish it off.  

John Calipari who coaches at Kentucky,  made a very interesting statement on Colin Cowherd's talk show this week.   He said "coaches win games, administrations win championships ".  He was referring to Kentucky having five different coaches win titles in basketball.   With that in mind, Ravenwood appears to be position for a great future in football with some great coaching and a very solid school that fields great teams and graduates some very smart kids.   Congrats on a great season of entertaining football and I am ready for another year in 2016....

Let's Go Raptors


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