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Mavs score early, score often at Heritage

  • Qarterback Stanton Martin takes the snap near the end zone early in the second quarter. The Mavericks’ found the end zone early and often during Friday night’s 55-28 victory over Heritage. — Tony Cox

  • Junior wide receiver Austin Elliot goes airborne against Heritage defender Spencer Williams. — Tony Cox

Anderson County’s 55-28 non-region football victory at Heritage last Friday was a better performance by the Maverick starters compared to the previous week’s win at home against Chattanooga Howard and one of the best performances of the season for Coach Davey Gillum’s No. 2-ranked squad.

“We worked very hard in practice this week to try and remedy some of the mistakes we’ve made this season,” said Gillum, whose Mavs are 6-0 heading into this week’s region matchup at East Ridge.

“We’ve been winning, but we’ve made too many mistakes with penalties and other things on the field that we’ve been fortunate enough to overcome in order to win. That being said, we’ve focused on practice in trying to clean up our play and we saw the benefits of that tonight. Hopefully, we are a hungry team again and we can keep our intensity high as we move forward. We’ve got all region games from here on out and we have to play at our best.”

The Mavs scored four touchdowns on their first four possessions to lead 27-0 at the 3:54 mark of the first quarter. After punting on their fifth possession, the Mavs came back to score TDs on their sixth and seventh possessions to lead 40-0 at 9:12 of the second quarter.



As the AC offense was running on all cylinders early, the defense was doing its part too as the host Mountaineers, now 0-6, did not record their first first down until the 8:01 mark of the second quarter. Heritage reached as far as the AC 37 on that drive before the Mavs stopped the Mountaineers as they forced an incomplete pass on fourth down.



Despite the fact AC quarterback Stanton Martin threw an interception on the next Mav drive, no harm was done as AC’s Austin Elliott intercepted a pass on third down and was downed at the Heritage 38. As Stone Hatmaker took over for Martin at that point along with other reserves coming into the game for the Mavs with about five minutes remaining before halftime. AC got a touchdown pass at 3:52 to go up 48-0, which included a mishandled snap on the extra-point kick resulting in a successful two-point pass play.



After Heritage finally scored on a 57-yard TD run, Hatmaker threw a 58-yatd scoring pass just before halftime as the Mavs went to the locker room with a 55-7 advantage, initiating the continuous running of the clock during the second half under the mercy rule.



Heritage scored three times during the second half against AC reserves. The final score is not indicative of how dominant the Mavs were.



AC outgained Heritage in total offense 497 yards to 279 with a 256-193 advantage on the ground and 2421-86 through the air. The Mavs outpaced the Mountaineers in first downs 23-12.



Martin completed nine of 16 passes for 134 yards, one interception and three touchdowns. Those scoring receptions were 39 yards to Michael Carroll, 24 yards to Logan Berry and another 32 yards to Berry. Hatmaker connected on seven of 12 passes for 107 yards and two scores – four yards to Anthony White and 29 yards to Cam Thomas. Ten different Mavs caught passes, led by Carroll’s three for 45 yards, Berry’s two for 56 and White’s two for 31.



Ryan Moog was AC’s leading rusher with 107 yards and two touchdowns encompassing two and seven yards. Marquise Gallahar scored on a one-yard run



Steve Wagner booted three extra points. Bruce Degenhart kicked two extra points. The two-point conversion pass occurred via the mishandled snap resulting in a successful throw on the run from Martin to Ethan Powers.



Thomas was the leading tackler with five. Sean Foster and Sean Cain each made four. Twenty-six AC defenders were credited with at least one tackle.



Friday’s region game at East Ridge kicks off at 7:30 p.m. The Pioneers are 0-5 following last Friday’s 21-18 loss at Signal Mountain.