DECATUR, Tenn. - Meigs County trailed by a touchdown at the end of the first quarter in Friday's home game against Sequatchie County.
The rest of the night belonged to the Tigers, who defeated the Indians 24-7.
"That's a big win for us," Meigs coach Jason Fitzgerald said. "They're a 3A school. We're a 2A school. Coming in we thought it was going to be a slobberknocker, and it was 7-6 at halftime, one team had 87 yards and the other had 81."
But because the Tigers (4-0) platoon at 10 positions while the Indians have several going both ways, that seemed to take a toll as the game wore on. Meigs' first real signs of life came from limiting Sequatchie (2-2) to 13 yards from scrimmage in the second quarter.
The Indians started the second half with the ball on their 14, and 10 plays later they found themselves facing fourth-and-1 on their own 47. With a chance to keep Meigs' defense on the field even longer, they went for it, but the Tigers stuffed the play for a 3-yard loss, with Juwan Martin putting the finishing touch with his hit.
"It wasn't just Juwan," Fitgerald said. "It was just a gang tackle."
Meigs then marched from Sequatchie's 44 for the go-ahead score with 2:28 left in the third quarter. The Tigers' touchdown came on Aaron Swafford's 19-yard pass to Jon Jon Beeler.
The Tigers went up 18-7 when Swafford found Caleb Hyde down the middle for a 61-yard touchdown with 9:53 to play.
"We hadn't shown a lot in the passing game," Fitzgerald said, referencing the time before those touchdowns, "because we hadn't had to."
Swafford ended up with almost 200 yards of total offense, with 111 coming through the air. He and running back Martin Smith, who scored the Tigers' first and last touchdowns on runs of 11 and 8 yards, teamed for the majority of the carries.
The Indians had three ball carriers with at least nine rushes each, but all three ended up in the low 30s in rushing yards.
"They did some good stuff," Sequatchie coach Adam Caine said. "They figured out what we were doing. They hurt us with the pass a few times. We've got some things to work on."
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.