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September 21, 2012

Tigers sentenced to Capital city punishment

By RICHY SHEPHERD Princeton Times

CHARLESTON — In search of its coveted first win of the season, the Princeton Tiger football team travelled to the Capital city last Friday, but fell short of the goal.

Tyrhee Pratt, Capital’s freshman phenom and frontrunner for MaxPreps Freshman of the Year Award, made sure of that. He fired three touchdown passes — two to his older brother Cliff — and ran for another, as the Cougars ran away with a 49-7 win.

After taking the opening kickoff, the Tigers went three-and-out, and on fourth down, the Tigers punt snap scurried out of the back of the end zone, resulting in a safety score for the home Cougars.

On the ensuing free-kick, the Cougars’ Rashard Cunningham snatched the ball out of the air and raced 35 yards for their second score of the evening and after the failed conversion kick, the Cougars held a 8-0 advantage, all without even running a single play from scrimmage.

Princeton’s next possession went a little more smoothly, but penalties and poor special teams play resulted in excellent field position for the Cougars (Princeton’s 31 yard stripe), after the Tigers Austin Smith shanked a 15-yard punt at the 7:34 mark in the opening quarter.

Then, after back-and-forth defensive stops for each team, the Cougars struck again when James Richmond took a handoff right and scampered 23 yards for the score.

The ensuing kickoff is when things really started to go downhill, when the Tigers Lamont Lee coughed up the football on the return, again giving the Cougars excellent field position and a chance to Capitalize.

Capitalize they did, as T. Pratt went to work with his arm, dialing in on a 37-yard strike midway through the second quarter and then again with 1:03 remaining until halftime on a 24-yarder.

The Cougars went to the locker room with a comfortable 35-0 advantage.

In the second half, the Tigers did a better job defensively, limiting the Cougars to just two additional, but the early lead was just too much to counteract on.

“We played good fundamental defense,” said a dejected coach Randy Peek. “We’re still not playing aggressive enough, but we did have the Pratt kid pretty much contained all night, it’s just that when he scrambles out of the pocket like he did, it’s hard to contain both him and his receiver downfield.”

“They just beat us,” he said. “They have a fine football team.”

The Tigers’ lone score came with just 34 ticks left in the game when of freshman of its own, Phillip Jones bulled in from three yards out.

The Tigers have had a hard time even buying a break, as the three of the Class AAA schools it’s faced are ranked in the top 16 and the lone Class AA school (Bluefield) is ranked No. 6 in it’s class.

Tonight is no exception, as the No. 8 ranked Class AAA George Washington Patriots will be in town.

The news got even worse this week when the coaching staff learned that it's star RB Tahj Sho-Johnson will be out for the season with a knee injury he suffered in their first game of the season against Woodow Wilson.

G-W touts two of the top players in the state in Ryan Switzer (last year’s Kennedy Award winner and Dustin Crouser (both Div I football commits), but Peek has put together a game plan that he thinks could possibly work.

“We’re gonna come out and and be aggressive with them,” said Peek. “We’re gonna try to control the football and move the football on offense,” he said.

Game time is set for 7:30 p.m. at Hunnicutt Stadium.



Princeton.........0    0  0   7 – 7

Capital........ 22 13 14  0 – 49

First Quarter

C: Safety. 10:49

C: Cunningham 35 return (kick fail). 10:49

C: T. Pratt 1 run (Garrison kick). 7:30

C: Richmond 23 run (Garrison kick). 2:39

Second Quarter

C: T. Pratt 37  pass to C. Pratt (Garrison kick). 5:40

C: Pratt 24 pass to Davis (kick fail) 1:03

Third Quarter

C: T. Pratt 24 pass to C. Pratt (Garrison kick). 8:19

C: Pittman 30 run (Garrison kick). :49

Fourth Quarter

P: Jones 3 run (Austin Smith kick). :34

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