ALCOA, Tenn. - Alcoa is headed to a TSSAA state football final - again.
The host Tornadoes on Friday looked like a team on a quest to win its 16th state championship by defeating Red Bank 34-0 in a Class 3A semifinal.
Alcoa (12-2), which won a state title last season, will play Covington (13-1) at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville on Thursday at 4 p.m. EST.
"We lost to Maryville by four points and had a shot to beat them," said Alcoa coach Gary Rankin, who was denied his 400th coaching victory that Sept. 8 night but got it the next week. "I knew if we could play like that we had a shot of getting back to the state championship. We have a young team that did a lot of growing throughout the year."
Red Bank (11-3) slugged it out with the Tornadoes throughout the first quarter, which ended with Alcoa leading 3-0 on a 31-yard field goal by Zeke Rankin. With him kicking another from 23 yards on the final play of the second quarter, the score was 13-0 at halftime.
It was during that second period that things really started to turn the Tornadoes' way. They outgained the Lions 174-30 after the first quarter on the way to a 12-5 advantage in first downs at the halftime break.
Connor Canfield made a diving catch of a 45-yard pass from Walker Russell to help set up the first of two short scoring runs by K'Vaughn Tyson, and Jalen McCord's 36-yard run on a draw play led to the half-closing score.
"We didn't help ourselves," Red Bank coach Chad Grabowski said. "We had some turnovers. We didn't convert on some things. We had some chances and didn't take advantage of them. Even going to halftime we felt like we were still in it. We really felt like we'd be right back in there if we could've scored after the second-half kickoff."
Instead, the Lions lost a fumble. And on the first play afterward, Russell went long to Canfield again, this time for a 37-yard touchdown.
"Calvin doesn't fumble much," Grabowski said of Calvin Jackson, who was lined up at quarterback in Red Bank's wildcat package on the play. "He dropped it there on the exchange, then they go in and scored, and it changed the whole dynamic of the game."
Coach Rankin noted that trying to contain Jackson, wherever he was lined up, was a top priority for his team's defense. The Tornadoes limited him to 43 yards on 11 carries and 38 yards on five receptions.
"We had to try to take away number 5," Coach Rankin said of Jackson. "He made some plays. He's a good football player. We had a good plan. We believed in it and the kids executed it. To get a shutout in a semifinal is huge."
Zay Brown, who last week surpassed the 2,000-yard mark in rushing for the season, led the Lions with 73 yards on 18 carries - almost all of that coming in the second half.
"To get to a state semifinal, I'm proud of these seniors and the legacy they've built here," Grabowski said. "They set a standard for the group behind them."
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.