October 20, 2007

Up again, Nitro roars past Hurricane

By Christopher Wade for Sunday Gazette-Mail

HURRICANE — For the last two weeks, Nitro coach Scott Tinsley has seen his team play up to the competition one week, and right back down the next.

After crushing previously unbeaten St. Albans 58-14 two weeks ago, Nitro came back down to earth last week in dropping a wild 56-48 decision to a Cabell Midland team that was 2-5.

Friday night, Tinsley saw his Wildcats play right back to their potential, scoring an easy 48-13 victory at Redskin Stadium.

Nitro picked up a very important win after coming in ranked No. 16 in Class AAA. The Wildcats improved to 5-3, while No. 8 Hurricane fell to 6-2.

“I wouldn’t say we played down to the competition against Midland,” Tinsley chuckled. “Their record wasn’t very good but they’re a good team. But if we play with the effort like tonight and against St. Albans, we’re good enough to beat anybody in the state.

“Points-wise, it was big. To get win No. 5 against a very good Hurricane team was definitely huge. Now we’ve got to get one of our last two.”

Nitro senior quarterback Michael Scott, who passed for 302 yards Friday night, agreed that coming off the emotional win against St. Albans was tough for the Wildcats against Cabell Midland.

“The St. Albans game was so emotional and last week against Midland, we just looked dead. Everyone was thinking it’s just Midland, and we should win for sure,” Scott said.

Scott and the Wildcats wasted no time in putting away Hurricane, leading 27-0 at halftime. They scored touchdowns on their first four offensive possessions, as Scott threw for 178 yards in the first half. Nitro outgained Hurricane in the first 24 minutes, 296-121.

Scott started the scoring with an 8-yard run, then threw three touchdown passes, a 38-yard strike to Brett McClanahan, an 18-yarder to Mark Massey, and a 25-yarder to Marcos Valentine.

When Nitro wasn’t scoring on offense, they were scoring on special teams. Hurricane yielded a safety early in the second quarter when a snap sailed over the punter’s head and bounced out of the end zone.

Meanwhile, the Redskins offense was forced to throw the ball much more in an attempt to come back.

“When you can make a running team have to throw, it’s a big advantage. We talked about trying to get on top early and we were certainly able to do that tonight,” said Tinsley.

“It was real important to get up on them early. It forced them to throw the ball more in trying to come back. We worked on our secondary all week and knew they couldn’t really hurt us there,” said Scott.

Hurricane quarterback Justin Henry was 8-of-18 passing for 86 yards. Terrell Martin led the Redskin rushing game with 59 yards on seven carries, but 48 of those yards came late in the game with Nitro’s second unit in.

Hurricane finally got on the scoreboard on an 86-yard kickoff return by Martin late in the third quarter with Nitro leading 41-0.

For Nitro, McClanahan caught seven passes for 167 yards and Massey tallied 103 yards rushing on 12 carries.

“We usually have a hard time scoring on them but Michael did a great job tonight and made all the right reads,” Tinsley said. “The receivers did a great job, our running game was clicking, and the line picked up everything. I wouldn’t want to try and stop it. We were clicking on all cylinders tonight.”