Last season, the Tyrone junior high football team won their second straight Big 8 championship. The Little Eagles had to share their title with Indian Valley however after winning the crown outright in 2001.
Tyrone and Indian Valley are right where they left off last season after the opening Big 8 contest on Thursday night, when the two foes battled to a 14-14 tie.
The scores indicate it was actually two separate contests. Even thought Tyrone was inside the Red Zone three times in the opening half, Indian Valley scored twice and enjoyed a 14-0 advantage at halftime. Then Tyrone took over to score twice and shutout the Little Warriors 14-0 in the final two quarters to earn the tie.
In junior high games, ties are not played off as in varsity games, so the score remained the same at the end of four quarters.
Tyler Gillman did most of the damage for the Little Eagles rushing 32 times for 290 yards and all of Tyrone’s points.
Gillman took a reverse and raced 94 yards for the first Tyrone score, then ran a sweep around end for an eight-yard TD and added the two-point conversion rush as well.
Don Conrad completed one for five pass attempts, an 11-yard connection with Josh Shaffer.
On defense, Justin Schopp and T. J. Albright had interceptions and Albright came up with a fumble recovery as well.
Tyrone coach Dan Plummer singled out several players for outstanding efforts, including Gillman, lineman Josh Wright on both side of the ball, Eddie Updike on defense and Schopp, who opened many holes for Gillman.
“Overall, we played a well balanced game,” said Plummer. “The defense played much better than in our 26-0 loss to Roosevelt last week. The coaches saw a vast improvement. We needed to get better hopefully at scoring when we get in the Red Zone. We need to work on weaknesses and get better for our game next week against Bellefonte.”
Tyrone hosts Bellefonte on Thursday beginning at 5:30 p.m.
