Red Bay celebrates Homecoming with region rout of Tharptown

There’s no place like home, especially on Homecoming.

For the Red Bay High School varsity football team, home—Fred Bostick Jr. Stadium—has been a fortress this season, and the Tigers’ 53-0 trouncing of Class 2A Region 8 opponent Tharptown Friday night was more proof positive of that. 

Red Bay (6-1, 3-0) jumped out to a commanding 34-0 lead on Tharptown (1-6, 0-3) before the first quarter was out, signaling the rout.

Senior running back Jaxon Vinson opened up the scoring on the first play from scrimmage with a 65-yard touchdown run to make it 6-0. Vinson would add another long 60-plus-yard rushing touchdown later in the first to make the score 20-0 and increase his total number of rushing touchdowns this season to 16, a team high.

Sandwiched in between Vinson’s two rushing scores, junior Jaxon Swann added a special teams touchdown, returning a THS punt 62-yards to the endzone for the Tigers’ second score of the evening.

As the first quarter neared its end, senior quarterback Jeremiah Thorne hit sophomore wide receiver Davien Colburn over the middle for a 42-yard touchdown before sophomore running back Joshua Thorne capped the opening period with a 30-plus-yard rushing TD to make it 34-0.

Red Bay’s dominant opening quarter allowed the first team players a well-deserved breather, and the second team Tigers were able to get a majority of the reps for the remainder.

“We preached to our (first team players) to play hard and execute well, not make any mistakes, and they did that,” first-year Red Bay head coach Tyler Jeffreys told the Franklin Free Press. “I think you can take a lot of things away from the (second team) offense and (second team) defense who played quite a bit tonight. That got better and that’s moving in the right direction.”

In the second quarter, freshman Sawyer Humphres dashed into the endzone for an 11-yard score to make it 40-0, the advantage the hosts took into halftime.

In the second half, Red Bay would score twice—once in the third quarter and once in the fourth. RBHS freshman Andre Brownlee capped the game’s scoring with a rushing touchdown from a little over 10 yards out to make it 53-0.

Jeffreys said it was nice—“absolutely”—to get the win on Homecoming and added that his team had a good week of practice despite the potential for Homecoming distractions.

The victory over Tharptown maintains the Tigers’ perfect region record so far this campaign. The Red Bay head coach said, with two region games remaining on their schedule, that the Tigers just have to continue to focus on their own game and keep striving to improve.

“Obviously there’s always areas where you can get better,” Jeffreys said. “I think we’ve just gotta continue to get better at what we do. It’s really not about the people we play, it’s about our team and us getting better each day.”

Red Bay’s Homecoming game also served as its regular season home finale. The Tigers will continue region play and travel to Decatur Heritage Christian for their next game on Friday, October 17.