South Pittsburg's Colton Blevins (50) becomes emotional after losing the 2011 TSSAA Division I class 1A championship game to Wayne County at Tennessee Tech University's Tucker Stadium with a final score of 27-14 early Friday morning.COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- In two of its playoff wins the past few weeks, South Pittsburg had to come from behind. Whatever answers the Pirates had Friday were used up in the first half and they came up short, 27-14, to unbeaten Wayne County in their bid for a second straight Class 1A championship.
When asked of his initial postgame thoughts, South Pittsburg coach Vic Grider responded, "Frustration.
"I'm not sure we played our best. They outplayed us. We couldn't get enough stops, and when we did we shot ourselves in the foot [offensively]."
A 71-yard Demetric Johnson touchdown run was erased by a holding call early in the first period. A likely touchdown drive -- with a chance to take the lead in the third quarter -- was stopped by first an illegal-procedure penalty at Wayne County's 2-yard line and then a mishandled shotgun snap that resulted in a sack and finally a judgment no-call on possible pass interference in the end zone on fourth down.
And a potential long interception return was missed when the defender batted the ball rather than pulling it in.
The drive that reached the 2-yard line and then went in reverse characterized the Pirates' struggles.
"I thought even after the penalty we could still get it in, but then we had the bad snap," Grider said. "I'm not taking anything away from Wayne County, but we kept shooting ourselves in the foot. We laid the ball down. We got penalties.
"I don't think we got caught up in [the problems], but this was probably our worst performance of the playoffs. We just got outplayed and outcoached."
South Pittsburg also had to fight the field-position battle, starting four drives inside its own 15 and getting no beginning better than its own 28 in eight possessions.
Though they struggled, the Pirates managed to pull into a 14-14 halftime tie. They went up 8-7 on a 98-yard pass play between quarterback Jake Stone and fleet senior receiver Antonio Chubb and a two-point-conversion run by Stone. However, Wayne County answered on a 34-yard pass from coach's son Austin Rice to Peyton Mathis midway of the second period. South Pittsburg then tied it on Johnson's 3-yard run.
But that was all the Pirates would do while Rice, who had 51 first-half rushing yards, gained 163 in the third and fourth quarters with two 1-yard touchdown runs.
"We felt like if we could hem them in we had a chance," Wayne County coach Rick Rice said. "We felt good about giving them 3-4-5-6 yards as long as we didn't give up a big play and could come up with a big stop every now and then. We knew they were going to take it and move it."
While the score was tied at intermission, Rice felt good about his team's chances coming out for the third period. He said the team had prided itself on coming out with strong drives to open second halves.
"That's the way we are," he said. "We always want to defer [choice on the opening coin flip] and we want the ball to start the third quarter. We want to get yards and first downs, and today we were able to go down and score."
Quarterback Rice was the game's leading rusher, his 211 yards more than doubling the 107 gained by the Pirates' Johnson. JiJuan Lankford, the Pirates' leading rusher during the regular season, got just eight carries for 38 yards.
Forced out of character and away from a run-dominated offense, Stone completed 9 of 16 passes for 166 yards. Chubb finished with 136 yards on five catches.
