FRANKLIN, W.Va. — Tucker County senior tailback Jared Reall is listed at 5-foot-8, 169 pounds.
While Reall runs low to the ground, he also packs a purpose, and the running back put that on display early and often throughout the Mountain Lions’ matchup at Pendleton County on Friday night.
Reall accounted for his team’s first three touchdowns and rushed for 89 yards in the opening half to stake Tucker to an 18-6 lead, and though Reall was kept out of the end zone for the final two quarters, he upped his rushing total to 220 yards in a 38-13 victory that allows the Class A No. 4 Mountain Lions to move to 6-0.
“There’s a couple times tonight we call a play to the right and he bounces it to the left, just so he gets hit. He loves it and he’s a tough, physical kid that plays hard,” Mountain Lions’ head coach A.J. Rapp said. “He’s a powerhouse and he’s almost never down. I told the referees don’t be quick with the whistle on him. He’ll squirt out of there and go and he did a couple times tonight.”
As productive as Reall was, a pair of passing touchdowns on fourth down from TCHS quarterback Sam Marks helped put the contest out of reach. The first came on Tucker’s first second-half series after the No. 9 Wildcats had scored to cut a 12-point halftime deficit to 18-13.
Faced with fourth-and-2 from the Pendleton 4, the Mountain Lions took a delay of game penalty, though it didn’t prove costly as Marks connected with Garrett Wilfong for a 9-yard touchdown.
“We know Garrett is our go-to guy if we have to toss that ball,” Rapp said. “He’s big and athletic and can jump, catch and run. He’s hard to defend. He can post you up. He’s a basketball player. That felt the hammer there.”
Tucker’s fourth attempt at a two-point conversion was unsuccessful like its first three, leaving the visitors with a 24-13 lead with 1:52 to play in the third quarter.
Moments later, Mark Phillips’ interception of a Colton Roberson pass looked as though it would add to the Tucker lead when Phillips returned it 41 yards for a touchdown, only for the score to be negated by a blindside block.
Instead, the infraction allowed the Mountain Lions’ offense to do more damage, and Marks’ 23-yard screen pass to Cade Rapp on fourth-and-4 made it 30-13 with 11:11 remaining.
Marks’ 8-yard touchdown run marked the game’s final TD, and Reall converted the two-point try with a run for Tucker’s first successful two-point play on its sixth attempt of the night.
“The boys played well and were right in it doing good things in the beginning. In the second half, it got away from us and we kind of got beat down,” said Pendleton assistant coach Chris Roberson.
It took until the game’s fifth series for the first points, with Reall covering all but five of his team’s 41 yards on the series, including a 4-yard TD run 12 seconds into the second quarter.
A blocked punt led to Reall’s second touchdown, which came on a 2-yard run two plays after Marks’ 45-yard pass to Reid Kisamore.
PCHS (3-2) countered and got a 22-yard touchdown pass from Roberson to Josiah Kimble to cut its deficit in half, though the point-after attempt was blocked, leaving it a 12-6 deficit 3:46 before halftime.
Lucas Bran returned the ensuing kickoff 52 yards, and Tucker covered 43 yards in three plays, regaining its two-score lead on Reall’s 14-yard TD run 2:13 before halftime.
Pendleton got into the red zone on its final first-half series, which was plagued by penalties and ended with an incomplete pass on fourth-and-25.
The Wildcats put together a scoring drive to start the second half, converting on fourth-and-12 with Roberson’s 16-yard pass to Travis Owens, and reaching the end zone three plays later on Roberson’s 9-yard pass to Corbin Dove.
“They have a lot of athletes and they’re a bunch of young kids,” Rapp said of the Wildcats. “They’re going to be tough in the future. They may get me out of this. Our guys did a good job and adjusted. We’re trying to move guys around and we haven’t seen a team that can sling it like this yet and throw it like that consistently. We struggled some, but our kids bounced back and we didn’t get our heads down.”
The home team never scored again and the Mountain Lions pulled away despite allowing an equal number of points in this game as what they had through their first five.
“We told the boys there’s a lot of positives coming out of this,” coach Roberson said. “That’s a team that had given up 13 points all year long and for a freshman that hadn’t played quarterback all year this year to come in after [James] Vincell got hurt, that was a pretty good showing for him and another freshman in Travis Owens. We have a bright future and a good season ahead of us. We can make a run for the playoffs down the road.”
Marks completed 7-of-10 passes for 124 yards with two touchdowns and rushed seven times for 49 yards.
Reall had 31 carries, including 17 in the second half.
Roberson, a freshman, completed 17-of-36 passes for 292 yards. William Chase Owens had five receptions for 107 yards, while Travis Owens and Kimble had 85 receiving yards apiece.
Pendleton rushed for only 21 yards to the Mountain Lions’ 269.
The Wildcats were without head coach Zac Smith due to the recent birth of his son.