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Inspired Tigers overcome early miscues, trounce Wildcats
Emotions were running high before Nevada High School’s first football game of the season Friday night at Logan Field.
That was nothing compared to afterward.
“It feels awesome. Knowing he’s right beside us all the time, it feels great,” senior lineman Lukas Higgins said following Nevada’s 52-31 victory over Logan-Rogersville, a win the Tigers dedicated to their late linebackers coach Will Downing.
“We know he’s up there watching down on us,” said junior quarterback Cade Beshore, who responded to an early lost fumble by tossing two touchdown passes, both to senior tight end Kartman Highley. “At first, we started off slow. Then we remembered that he’d want us to go hard every play.”
“It means a lot to win it for him,” said junior wingback Avious Steadman, who rushed for two scores — including a 94-yarder to put the game away midway through the fourth quarter.
“I could feel him with me,” said Will’s son, senior defensive back J.D. Downing, who helped Nevada’s defense contain elusive Logan-Rogersville quarterback J.J. O’Neal after the Wildcats jumped out to an early lead. “Whenever we got down 14-0, all of us on the sideline decided the only thing we can control is our attitude and effort. That’s what my dad always said.”
Instead of panicking, Nevada outscored Logan-Rogersville 30-3 before halftime.
Senior Eli Cheaney put the Tigers on the board first with a two-yard run and two-point conversion toward the end of the first quarter.
Fellow senior Logan Marquardt then sacked a scrambling O’Neal on fourth down, setting up another Cheaney TD run (this time from 13 yards out). Beshore connected with junior tight end Drew Beachler on the two-point conversion to give NHS the lead.
A 30-yard field goal put Logan-Rogersville back on top, but only briefly, as Beshore found Highley for a 26-yard touchdown pass a few plays later.
Beachler then intercepted O’Neal on the other end, setting up a 79-yard drive by the Tigers that ate up every second of the final minute-and-a-half before the break.
In fact, Nevada was able to capitalize on a roughing-the-passer call with zero ticks left on the clock with a sweep to junior running back Cade Sanderson from the 11-yard line. Jordan Johnson then ran in the two-point conversion untouched — putting Nevada up 30-17 at halftime.
“That was a big momentum swing,” said NHS head coach Wes Beachler, whose squad was far from done gaining energy.
O’Neal closed the gap with a touchdown run to open the third quarter, but Cheaney busted off a 55-yard run up the left sideline when the Tigers got the ball back. Unfortunately, he was hurt on the play and had to be carted off the field.
“He was over there on the stretcher just screaming and yelling for us to score. That’s all he cared about when he got taken off,” Beachler said of Cheaney. “He’s probably one of the most talented running backs I’ve ever coached.”
Steadman stepped up in Cheaney’s absence, running in his first score of the season from 17 yards out (Johnson stretched over two tacklers for another two-point conversion).
In the fourth quarter, Beshore thread the needle between two defenders of his own on a 28-yard TD pass to Highley. On Nevada’s next possession, Steadman broke free up the left sideline for his highlight-reel rushing TD.
“Once I got that little stiff-arm, I just knew it was game over,” he said.
Logan-Rogersville’s reserves added a late score, but by then the game was well out of hand.
For the second year in a row, the Tigers start the season 1-0 with a win over the Wildcats.
Beachler was quick to credit last year’s seniors for initiating the culture shift for the program — and for this year’s upperclassmen for carrying the torch.
“It doesn’t mean we’re going to win state or have a nine-win season,” he said. “Our kids just do things the right way, and that’s a change in the culture of Nevada football.”