Staff Photo by Robin Rudd /
Howard coaches wait under Red Gaston Stadium for the rain to slacken.The stands were filled and there was excitement throughout the Chattanooga area for the first Friday night of the high school football season, but the weather refused to cooperate. A line of thunderstorms moved through the area at or near time for kickoff, making a mess of things and causing several games to be played much later than scheduled or postponed.
The Grace Academy versus Lookout Valley game was tied at 21 when the inclement weather moved in and never resumed. Yellow Jackets coach David Dinger said both staffs agreed not to play the rest of the game, so it will end as a no-contest.
The strangeness carried over to Chattanooga Christain, where visiting McCallie jumped out to a 21-0 lead by halftime before the storms knocked out power for more than 20 minutes. Once it became obvious that the weather would cause a long delay, both teams agreed to call off the second half, giving the Blue Tornado a shortened win.
Brainerd and Howard made it as far as the start of the second quarter before being postponed. Those two rivals will resume the game today at 1 p.m., with Howard leading 6-0 after a 70-yard touchdown run by junior Javian Robinson.
At Red Bank, where Chris Brown was set to make his head coaching debut against rival Soddy-Daisy, players from both teams had warmed up and were making their way onto the field when lightning caused a delay that eventually became a postponement once the torrential rain fell.
Although the two teams tentatively had planned to play the game today, Brown notified the Times Free Press late Friday night that the game would not be played toay and no decision had been made as of the newspaper's deadline on when it would be made up.
"I'm a glutton for punishment, so I'd rather get anything bad out of the way early in my career than later on," Brown joked after the game had been postponed. "It's not the way any of us wanted to start the season."
Cleveland and Rhea County were tied at 7 when that game was delayed and eventually postponed. The teams will try to resume that nonregion game at 1 this afternoon at Raider Field.
Before the game was called with 17.6 seconds to go in the first quarter, the host Blue Raiders took a 7-0 lead on their second possession, taking advantage of a Chandler Kaylor fumble to build a five-play, 70-yard drive that was capped by a 34-yard touchdown pass from Jackson Moore to a wide-open Robert Flowers with 6:34 to play.
Rhea's Eagles used their ground game to respond, with an eight-play, 73-yard drive. Quarterback Zack Pemberton had 62 yards rushing on the drive, including a 49-yard run down the left sideline. A pass-interference call in the end zone on a third-and-10 play extended the drive, and Pemberton scored on a 5-yard run two plays later.
Moore was 5-for-5 for 75 yards at the time the game was suspended.
Contact Stephen Hargis at 423-757-293 or shargis@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.