There was a contrast in quarterbacks Friday night at Glenvar Stadium.
Glenvar, the defending 2A state champions, had senior Zack Clifford under center in front of the partisan Highlander faithful. On the opposite sideline, visiting Cave Spring had freshman Jacob Knight making his first varsity start.
This time around, seniority ruled.
Riding the rushing game of senior running back Daryl Manns, Glenvar jumped out to a 21-6 halftime lead before methodically pulling out the hard-fought 28-6 win over Cave Spring. Manns finished with 187 rushing yards on 33 carries, including a pair of touchdowns.
The game was a battle in trenches in the early going before Glenvar got on the scoreboard first. Manns capped off a Glenvar drive on a 1-yard touchdown run with 1:44 left in the first quarter for a 7-0 Highlander lead after Jacob Mullins split the uprights on the point-after.
Cave Spring responded by driving into Glenvar territory where Knight converted on a fourth-down pass near the Highlander 20. But, four plays later, Knight’s fourth-down toss was batted down at the line, giving the ball back to Glenvar.
The Highlanders took eight plays, capped off by a Clifford 5-yard touchdown keeper into the left flats, to go up 14-0 with 5:07 left in the second quarter.
Later in the quarter, Cave Spring punted to the the Glenvar 11-yard line, and with most everyone expecting the Highlanders to run out the clock, Clifford found Elliott Stigall 20 yards behind the Cave Spring secondary for a back-breaking 85-yard touchdown bomb that sent Glenvar up 21-0 with 2:11 left.
Cave Spring had its most productive drive of the night after the ensuing kickoff, with Knight hooking up four times with sophomore Willie Harden, including a 6-yard touchdown catch in the right side of the end zone with 24 seconds left that cut the Glenvar lead to 21-6 as the teams headed to the halftime break.
Cave Spring looked ready to make things interesting when they took the second half kickoff and drove inside the Glenvar 1-foot line midway through the third quarter. But, the Knights coughed up the ball on the next play, leaving Cave Spring to wonder what could have been.
In the early stages of the fourth quarter, Cave Spring rolled the dice on fourth down from their own 31-yard line, and an incomplete pass turned ball over to Glenvar. Five plays later, Manns scored on a 3-yard TD burst that completed the scoring after the Mullins’ conversion.
Knight certainly got his feet wet in his first start at QB for Cave Spring, throwing 39 times and completing 21. Harden, weighing in at 120 pounds, made 11 catches, coming up just shy of the 100-yard mark.
Bill Turner
