Charleston Saturday Gazette

November 03, 2007 Nitro wins shootout vs. Princeton
77-42 victory should be enough to earn playoff berth

PRINCETON — It was another wild, wild, wild one for Nitro. This time, it was probably enough to get the Wildcats back into the Class AAA playoffs.

Michael Scott threw for 314 yards and five touchdowns Friday night to lift the Wildcats to a 77-42 shootout victory over Princeton and likely locked up a postseason berth.

Nitro (6-4) entered the game ranked 14th in the revised SSAC ratings after Martinsburg’s two forfeit losses were reinstated. Victories by Robert C. Byrd (over Wheeling Park) and East Fairmont (over Fairmont Senior) took care of two other teams that were vying with Nitro for one of the final spots in the 16-team field.

“Those two things had to happen, and they did,’’ said Nitro coach Scott Tinsley. “I hope we’re in, because if not, we’re going to have a lot of disappointed kids. I just told them after that game that they were in.’’

Tinsley said he thought the Wildcats would wind up either 13th or 14th, which could mean a road date with Robert C. Byrd or a rematch with St. Albans.

Friday’s game was the latest in a long line of crazy games for the Wildcats, who have lost to Cabell Midland 56-48 and Capital 42-36 this season and beaten Poca 48-33.

Nitro seemingly had the game on cruise control at halftime, leading 47-14. But the Tigers (1-9) scored on their first possession of the second half, recovered an onside kick and then scored again to make it 47-28 early in the third quarter.

“We already had some reserves in the game on defense in the second quarter,’’ Tinsley said, “and we even had some plans to make some offensive substitutions. But they came out and scored right off the bat, and scored again and we were in kind of a not-so-comfortable zone. So we put everybody back in, but they were still scoring against our ones [first-team defense].’’

Nitro, however, never took its foot off the pedal on offense, racking up 524 yards in all and didn’t punt.

Besides his five TD passes, Scott returned a kickoff 86 yards for a score and intercepted a pass and lateraled to Marcos Valentine, who took it 96 yards for a TD.

Valentine caught 12 passes for 228 yards and four scores. Brett McClanahan added four catches for 71 yards. Mark Massey carried 13 times for 134 yards and two TDs.

For Princeton, Tevin Allen ran 13 times for 130 yards and two scores and Jerrell Powell added 70 yards and one TD on a dozen carries and also scored three 2-point conversions.

The Tigers’ T.J. Benners caught a 29-yard touchdown pass and brought back a kickoff 85 yards for a score.