Silverdale scores 42 unanswered points, stuns Signal Mountain 42-21.

BY JEFF CATE (TEAM FYN SPORTS CONTRIBUTOR) – Silverdale head coach Mike Connor said, “we’re trying to win the last 4 minute of the first half and we want to win the first 4 minutes of the second half”. Mission accomplished for the Seahawks as they did that and then some, scoring 42 straight points and shutting out Signal Mountain in the second half to beat the Eagles 42-21 on Friday night.

Blake Wolfard got Signal Mountain’s final home game of 2023 started off a good note as he went up and hauled in a 23-yard touchdown from Garrett Wilson and the Eagles had a 7-0 lead with 2:11 to go in the first quarter. That would be the only score in the first 12 minutes of this battle for bird supremacy.

Wilson would get his team on the board within the first 3 minutes of the second quarter. He pushed his way forward for a huge fourth down conversion to keep Signal Mountain’s drive going, then rolling into the endzone from 5 yards out and a 14-0 Eagles lead. Wilson would find Christian Thompson for a 38-yard touchdown pass as the ball was batted in the air by 2 Silverdale defenders but Thompson was able to bring it in and race in for the score and a 3-touchdown advantage with 2:07 remaining in the first half. Silverdale ran their 2-minute offense to near perfection as they drove down the field and got on the board when Connor Jenne found Tanner Bayne for a 16-yard score with 35 seconds left in the half, that would be the halftime score.

Remember Coach Connor saying the Seahawks try to win the last 4 minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half? Yeah, they did okay on both. The second half started off with a bang on the first play as Jenne connected with Jasper Martin for a 55-yard score and the green and gold squad on the visitor’s sideline began to soar with confidence, cutting the Signal Mountain lead to 21-14.

Jenne would score from 11 yards out and a 21-21 tied matchup with 5:30 left in the third quarter. Timothy Connor would add some special teams magic to the Seahawks formula as he got his hand on a Signal Mountain punt, and ran it in from 25 yards out and gave Silverdale their first lead of the night, 28-21, with 3:45 to go in the quarter. The Seahawks would put an exclamation point in the final minute of the third quarter when Caleb Greco ran for 28 of his 134 rushing yards as Silverdale extended their lead 35-21 and left everyone on both sides asking what they just saw.

Landon Deitch’s 3-yard touchdown run less than 2 minutes into the fourth quarter gave Silverdale a 42-21 lead. Deitch would end up with 73 yards rushing on the night as he and Greco led the Seahawks’ rushing attack that would rack up 235 yards on the ground. The Seahawks scored 42 unanswered points in just under 15 minutes of game time and would shutout Signal Mountain the final 26:07 (the Wilson to Thompson touchdown pass was the final points of the night for the Eagles).

“We train for this”, Connor said. “We’ve been training for this moment for quite a while and to see our guys finally come through and get the win by winning moments. It’s been a long season, for these guys to see all that hard work pay off it’s so rewarding.”

Silverdale (2-6, 1-4 region) has an off-week on October 13th and will face Knox Grace at home on October 20th. Signal Mountain (3-5, 1-3 region) is off next week as well and will hit the road to take on Loudon on October 20th.

Follow Jeff Cate on “X” at @TheJeffCate