For the last few weeks, all Soddy-Daisy tailback Cedric Edwards had heard and read, it seemed, was the fact he exceeded 2,000 rushing yards last season as if his 800 yards this year were nothing more than potatoes.
Friday night with visiting Walker Valley and a big home crowd witnessing, Edwards looked as if he were going to get 2,000 in one game. He carried the ball 34 times for 387 yards, caught 14 yards worth of passes, returned a kickoff 70 yards and scored five touchdowns to lead Soddy-Daisy to a scintillating 56-48 District 5-AAA victory over the winless but certainly not hopeless Mustangs.
“He’s special. Right now he is Soddy-Daisy football,” Trojans coach Kevin Orr said. “When we needed something, he just stepped up. The effort up front was there, but he made a lot on his own as well.”
Edwards might have as well have been a bus, because he took the Walker Valley defense to school all evening long.
And while he was the undisputed king of stats on the night, there was plenty of star performances in what turned out to be a strange game. Both squads had allowed close to 35 points per game coming in but played to a shocking 7-6 halftime score, the Mustangs leading it.
From the third quarter on, though, it was bedlam. The two teams combined for 1,047 yards of offense once they turned the pinball machine on and put up 81 points in the final half between them.
“I was a little shocked at the halftime score,” said Edwards, who ran for 166 yards in the first two quarters. “This was the best game I’ve probably ever had. My line was phenomenal and we made the plays when we had to. Still, it was a really bizarre game.”
Soddy-Daisy (3-4, 2-2) seemed poised to put the Mustangs (0-7, 0-3) away on several occasions, but it wasn’t happening. Down 35-14 at one point, Walker Valley used a fake punt and several quick strikes to keep it fascinating.
The Mustangs’ Gabe Cartwright scored four touchdowns of his own, three of them on pass receptions covering 68, 43 and 50 yards. He added a 35-yard TD run and finished with 187 receiving yards. Tailback Kelvin Wells Jr. scored twice and had 167 yards rushing and 59 yards receiving.
Edwards’ TDs came on runs of 31, 4, 60 and 1 and a swing pass covering 7 yards.
“We had a lot of young kids step up tonight, and Walker Valley really taught us something about not giving up and playing hard to the end. Tonight was a big win,” Orr said.