Marion County's Jacob Saylors (8) tries to break the tackle of Boyd-Buchanan's Tanner Harris (47). The Boyd-Buchanan Buccaneers visited the Marion County Warriors in TSSAA football action on September 23, 2016. Friday's second-round Tennessee playoff pairings
(All kickoffs at 7 p.m. local time) CLASS 6A Bradley Central (9-2) at Blackman (8-3) CLASS 5A Farragut (10-1) at Rhea County (9-2) Walker Valley (7-4) at Ooltewah (9-2) CLASS 3A East Ridge (6-5) at Red Bank (8-3) Notre Dame (7-4) at Sequatchie County (11-0) CLASS 2A Watertown (10-1) at Marion County (10-1) Meigs County (10-1) at Forrest (10-1) CLASS 1A Fayetteville (9-2) at South Pittsburg (10-1) Whitwell (6-5) at Columbia Academy (10-0) DIVISION II McCallie (7-4) at Brentwood Academy (7-2) Baylor (7-4) at MUS (10-0)
JASPER, Tenn. - Following the same script it used in the opening round of last year's playoffs, Marion County jumped on visiting Westmoreland early and rode a stingy defense to a 42-0 win.
The Warriors, who thumped the Eagles by the same score in last year's first round, hope to use Friday's impressive opening-round win to kick-start a third consecutive run to the Class 2A title game. Marion County (10-1) will host Watertown (10-1) in next week's second round.
"It was important to come out and get on them early," Warriors coach Joey Mathis said. "We wanted a quick start and impose our will on them."
After stuffing the Eagles on the opening possession, Marion needed just four plays to cover 45 yards, with Hunter Zeman covering the final 8 for the first touchdown.
The Warriors then struck for 28 second-quarter points to assure the second half would start with a running clock. Three of those scores came on short drives, one set up by a fumble recovery and return of 15 yards by Ty Heifner and another following a 60-yard punt return by Zeman to the 10.
Two of those drives were capped by 1-yard TD dives from quarterback Isaah Sampson. and the other ended with Sampson hitting Zeman on a 6-yard scoring pass. At that point, midway through the second quarter, Marion's defense had limited Westmoreland (4-7) to minus-27 total yards.
For the game, the Warriors held the Eagles to 58 total yards, including 13 rushing on 31 attempts.
"We knew they were a run-heavy team - that's what they do best - so we wanted to take that away from them," Mathis said. "If they were going to beat us, we were going to make sure they did it doing something else besides run the ball.
"Our defensive kids played fast and really got after them."