Four in a row for the Coffee County Red Raider football team. On senior night the Raiders made it memorable as they knocked off the Rockvale Rockets, 35-28.
Coffee County opened the season with a win over Franklin County and then lost mostly close games four straight weeks. The Raiders have been on a roll ever since with consecutive wins. They have not won that many games in a row since 2003 and the 5 wins this year are the most since 2007 when Coffee County won 6.
The game was tied at 7 at the halftime break. The only score for the Raiders in the first half occurred when QB Connor Shemwell connected with Jahlin Osbourne on a TD pass.
Things didn’t look good at the start of the 3rd quarter as Rockvale’s DJ Thornton returned the kickoff 87 yards for a touchdown.
The TD ended up not phasing Coffee County as they answered back when Osbourne made a fantastic catch on a Shemwell pass and rumbled in from 13-yard yards out.
Next up the Raider defense, which played great all night got in on the scoring, as Freshman Jayden Carter picked off a Rocket pass and scored from 8 yards out.
After a Rockvale turnover, Shemwell, who had 3 TD passes on the night ran for a 4-yard score. Later in the 3rd, Shemwell continued his great play as hit Osbourne with a 22 yard TD pass to give the Raiders a commanding 35-14 lead at the end of the 3rd quarter.
The 4th quarter belonged to the Rockets as they battled back to cut the Coffee County lead to 35-28, but the Raiders held on to upset Rockvale to improved to 5-4 on the season and the Rockets fell to 7-2.
Looking at our unofficial statistics, Senior QB Connor Shemwell was 18-of-26 for 205 yards and 3 touchdowns and a rushing touchdown. Junior Jahlin Osbourne caught 13 passes for 155 yards and 3 scores. Junior tailback Konor Heaton continued his great play in 2021 campaign rushing 24 times for 92 yards.
It was an easy pick for broadcasters Lucky Knott and Mike Ray as they named Osborne and Shemwell the Sir Pizza Co-Players of the Game on Rooster 101.5.
The final regular season game for the season is Friday night Oct. 29 at the 7-2 Rhea County Golden Eagles. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. central time with the Friday Night Live pre-game show beginning at 6 p.m. Playoff football begins on the road Nov. 5.
