Whitmire loses tough battle on Senior Night in regular season finale

WHITMIRE — The Wolverines played hard, but lost a heartbreaker in the regular season finale. Whitmire(3-7, 2-3 region 1-A) 36-34 at home against Ware Shoals(4-5, 3-2 region 1-A).

It was Senior Night for the Wolverines and the class of 2025 put on a show for their home crowd, but still came up short. Both teams went into the regular season finale having already clinched a playoffs berth. So, Friday night’s game was merely for seeding purposes. A win would give the Wolverines a home playoffs game and they would finish second in the region. A loss would drop them to a five seed and means they have to go on the road in the first round of the state playoffs.

Whitmire came out strong in the first quarter and scored on their opening offensive drive of the game. Senior quarterback Blake Stribble called his own number for a one-yard touchdown run.

The Wolverines’ defense came up with a huge stop on a fourth down attempt to give their offense the ball back. The offense took advantage of the good field position and turned that into points. Kayshaun Schumpert and Stribble had back-to-back runs of 20-plus yards to put them in the red zone. Stribble once again found the end zone for his second rushing touchdown of the night.

The home team were successful on the two-point conversion attempt and went quickly went up by two scores, 14-0.

Ware Shoals finally got something going on offense with their dynamic passing attack. Junior quarterback Jayden Johnson found Jayce Medlin from the 11-yard touchdown reception. They were also successful on their two-point conversion attempt to cut into the deficit. The Hornets still trailed 14-8 midway through the second quarter.

Whitmire went to their run game to chew up some clock. The long drive ended with points for the third consecutive possession in the first half. Stribble used the play action to find Xzye Stephens in the end zone for 12-yard touchdown reception. The Wolverines went up 20-8.

Sam Moore and Kaleb Evans each got huge sacks on back-to-back plays to put an end to the Hornets last offensive drive of the first half. Whitmire led 20-8 at halftime.

The visitors got the ball first after halftime and took advantage of it. The Hornets used their rushing attack to drive the ball down the field, eat up the clock and score some points. Junior running back Altavis Evans found the end zone with 10-yard rushing touchdown after picking up 40-plus rushing yards on the drive.

Whitmire still held a slim 20-14 lead going into the final quarter.

The fourth quarter was an offensive explosion for both teams. Ware Shoals took their first lead of the game after Evans found the end zone again for his second rushing touchdown of the night. They led 22-20 after successfully converting the two-point conversion.

Schumpert showed many people why he is one of the best running backs at the single A classification level in the state for the last three seasons. He gave his squad the lead back with a 52-yard touchdown run on the first play of the possession. It pushed him over 100-yards rushing for the fourth time this season to give Whitmire the lead again, 28-22.

Ware Shoals answered with a scoring drive of their own. Johnson kept it himself to score a 30-plus yard rushing touchdown to tie the game 28-28.

The fireworks continued after Whitmire used the run game to burn some clock and eventually put up another six points. Landon Wulfe scored a 5-yard rushing touchdown to reclaim the lead for his squad. The Wolverines failed on the second two-point conversion attempt after being pushed back for a holding penalty on the first attempt.

Then, the Hornets hit the home team over the top for their longest play of the game on a critical third down to get back in front. Tyrell Cunningham hauled in 60-yard touchdown reception. The Hornets lead 36-34 after the two-point conversion attempt was successful.

The Wolverines got the ball back with 1:36 left in the game. Stribble led the Wolverines down the field and converted a key third down attempt on one of the few passes he attempted in the game. Whitmire tried to steal a big play by running a sweep play to Stephens lined up in the slot receiver position, but it failed. He fought for extra yards and a Ware Shoals defender punched the ball to create a fumble that they visitors recovered to end the game.

“I know its crazy to say, but there was one punt in the game and we were the ones that punted the ball. That’s the difference. You can’t be the ones to punt in these type of games. But it was kid fighting for yards there at the end of the game. You[Observer] covered us enough to know that the Whitmire kids don’t quit. That’s all he was trying to do was to make a play. It’s not his fault, he was just doing what he was taught to do,” said Wolverines head coach Andrew Campbell.

Both teams combined to score 36 points after scoring 34 points combined in the first three quarters. There were also four lead changes in the fourth quarter alone.

Stribble finished the game with over 150 all-purpose yards and three total touchdowns(two rushing). Moore and Evans each had a sack and combined for nine tackles for loss.

“It was a positive sign, but the down side to this loss is that we are a fifth instead of second which is a testament to our region being so tough. There’s too many people to name who played well for us tonight and we talked about it before the game. It was the first time in seven weeks where we had majority of our roster healthy and dressed out. That’s a big thing for us and you can see the difference tonight,” said Campbell.

Whitmire will travel to Lamar on next Friday, Nov. 15th for the first round of the single A class state playoffs.