HARTSVILLE, Tenn. – Everyone knew this is where the road would take Signal Mountain.
Be it in the first round or the finals, the Eagles’ state championship dreams always had an intersection with Trousdale County.
“They gave us a tough bracket and we worked through it,” Signal coach Bill Price said his Eagles continued their high-wire act through the playoffs with a 46-36 win over previously unbeaten and top-ranked Trousdale.
The Eagles, now 12-0, have carried themselves all season as the team to beat. Trousdale quite simply has been the team to beat for the last decade. Until Friday night, that is.
Until Signal quarterback Hogan Whitmire started to run against a defense that had seven defensive backs to slow the Eagles’ passing attack.
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Until Zack Bowman’s monstrous stop on fourth-and-2 in the second half that gave the Eagles control for good.
Until Reese Phillips’ interception return for a touchdown that punched Signal’s ticket to a semifinal home game against Boyd-Buchanan next Friday.
“It says we are here and we are not going away,” Phillips said of the win. “They were the No. 1 seed and they had not lost here in like two years.
“It says a lot.”
This win more than any of the 21 previous wins in Signal’s two-year history speaks volumes because of who it was against and where it was.
Welcome to Hartsville, the midstate’s unofficial capital of camouflage, Carhartt and football championships. As soon as you cross the Cumberland River, every other sign is quick to highlight Trousdale’s nine state titles – and its seven since 1990.
So here were the Eagles facing the biggest challenge in their program’s brief two-year history. They faced a hostile crowd that is so used to success that there was almost a fight afterward.
The stakes were through the roof and the Eagles showed and refused to flinch.
These Yellow Jackets are not accustomed to this type of treatment. Jackets coach Kevin Creasy was 40-1 before Friday night, and this was his first loss to a Tennessee team.
That was before Signal Mountain arrived — both for this game and on the course for a spot in the state semifinals.
“I am really proud of these boys,” Price said after the program’s first road playoff win. “There were a lot of big plays and a lot of turning points, but this team keeps fighting no matter what.”
So it goes. These Eagles have now handled the top Class 2A teams in the state. Now they get a shot at a cross-county foe with a spot in the state-title game on the line.
“Boys,” a near-hoarse Price told the Eagles in the cramped visitors’ locker room Friday, “now you get to play a state playoff game on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and there isn’t anything better.”
And they earned that honor by better than the best. The best, that is until the Eagles arrived.
