E.K. Slaughter got used to winning on Tom Weathers Field, and he apparently saw no reason to quit just because he left Red Bank.

The first-year Soddy-Daisy coach, a big part of Red Bank’s 33-game regular-season win streak, returned Thursday and left a 33-22 winner.

As the final seconds ticked down, Slaughter made his way down the sideline, handing out high-fives to his players and hugs to his coaches. By the final horn, he’d had a water-bucket shower that left him shivering.

Staff Photo by Margaret Fenton Soddy-Daisy defensive end Greg Parrott chases Red Bank quarterback Andy Christopher with less that 20 seconds to go in the first half Thursday night. Red Bank led 22-14 at the end of the half.

“This win had very little to do with me and a lot to do with the heart of these kids,” said Slaughter, whose team rallied from a 15-point first-half deficit. “It does mean an awful lot to me when I think about where we were when we started last spring and what we had to overcome in the preseason and then what we had to overcome tonight.”

The Trojans shut out the four-time defending Region 4-4A champions in the second half.

“Coach (Steve) Garland made some good adjustments and our kids made some big adjustments,” said Slaughter, who happened to succeed Weathers at Soddy-Daisy. “I thought we settled in midway of the first quarter, but, still, these kids just amaze me.”

There were a handful of key plays in the second half, including a backward pass that fell incomplete and was ruled a lateral. The Trojans’ Justin Holcomb fell on it with 2:39 left in the third period, just minutes after Soddy-Daisy held the Lions on fourth-and-a-foot in Trojans territory. Then Scott Beavers fell on a fumble at the Soddy-Daisy 40 with 9:53 to play. Later in the fourth quarter, Barnes broke up a key third-down pass.

And to add to Red Bank’s misery, the Lions had an early third-quarter TD called back due to an ineligible receiver downfield.

Red Bank scored first, Tim Dews getting in from 20 yards out with 8:36 left in the initial quarter. The Trojans countered 16 seconds later when Bubba Haney raced 95 yards with the ensuing kickoff. The Lions then went 90 yards in five plays with Dews handing them a 14-7 lead on a 10-yard run. Following a safety when Soddy-Daisy quarterback Scott Parrott slipped to the end-zone turf, Red Bank extended its lead to 22-7 on Shammel Brummett’s 2-yard run.

But then Soddy-Daisy began its comeback, getting to within eight points on Parrott’s 13-yard pass to Brandon Lane.

The Trojans made it interesting on a 58-yard, third-quarter pass from Parrott to Donovan Barnes and then took the lead on a 4-yard run by P.J. Hubbard. They iced the game — and caught Red Bank flatfooted — with 2:20 left when Parrott dropped back and found Haney for a 44-yard score.

“They played well. We played well, but they played well longer than we did,” said Red Bank coach Tim Daniels, who lost his top two running backs to cramps early in the third quarter. “We fought. Nobody quit, but we had too many mistakes and too many missed opportunities. I told the kids before the game, ‘I want to see you go play hard,’ and I thought they did. We lost to one of our big rivals, but my hat’s off to E.K. and Soddy-Daisy.”

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