August 27, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
The DeKalb County Tigers and Upperman Bees will meet in “The Battle of Center Hill” tonight (Thursday) in Smithville. The Tigers are hoping to reclaim the oar from the Bees who have a three game winning streak against the black and gold.
(Click link below to hear WJLE’s Tiger Talk Program)
https://www.wjle.com/tiger-talk-august-27/
The oar, a trophy instituted a few years ago between these two schools, is affectionately nicknamed “The Battle of Center Hill,” because the teams are on opposite sides of Center Hill Lake.
The game was moved from Friday night to tonight (Thursday) due to the threat of rain from the remnants of Hurricane Laura.
The Tigers will be looking for their first victory of the season. DeKalb County lost in their home opener last Friday night to Warren County 30 to 24 while Upperman lost at Cookeville 28 to 0.
Tickets will go on sale, today (Thursday) first come first serve, at 4 pm at the DeKalb County football ticket booth. There will be a limit of 2 tickets per person. Tickets will be sold until the limited seating capacity is reached for the game.
Tiger Coach Steve Trapp, speaking on WJLE’s Tiger Talk program, explained the decision to move the game from Friday to Thursday.
“We all got together and talked it out to make the best decision for us to have a good environment for our fans and a good playing surface as well as a safe event. The biggest concern wasn’t so much the rain. You can play in rain. You might not like it. But the chance for lightning was a concern. I have been in games with lightning. If you sit for a 30 minute delay and it keeps lightning you have to do it again. One year we didn’t get back from McMinnville until about four in the morning because we had so many lightning delays. We think about the safety of our players and fans in a case like that,” he said.
While he doesn’t question his team’s effort in last week’s loss to Warren County, Coach Trapp said there is definitely room for improvement, particularly defensively and in the kicking game.
“I can’t question my guys effort. I think they played hard. We did some good things especially offensively but we stopped ourselves for the most part on some of our drives. I felt like we moved the ball pretty consistently all night. A lot of times when our drives ended we were inside their 30 or 25 yard line. Penalties and turnovers doomed us in that regard. Special teams play was not good other than we had some pretty good returns on kickoffs. Defensively it was the weakest spot of the night. We preach all the time about being lined up right and making sure our eyes are on our work and that we react to what our keys are but after watching the tape we did not do that well. When you play defense like that and face a quality ballplayer like we faced last Friday night they can make you look bad. Ultimately we scored the same amount of touchdowns as Warren County. The difference in the game was being able to make two point conversions, an extra point , and we gave up a field goal so we have room to improve,” said Coach Trapp.
As for the Bees.
“Coach Adam Caine is a great coach. He always gets his teams to play hard and run around fast on defense. The Bees are a disciplined team that typically don’t make mistakes to beat themselves and if you make mistakes they will capitalize on it. Those old coaching clichés still hold true. We have to be good on first down and limit our mistakes in crucial areas, no turnovers and things like that. If both teams play exceptionally well it will be an exceptional game,” said Coach Trapp.
WJLE’s pre-game shows begin with “Murphy’s Matchups” at 6 p.m. featuring the Guru of Tennessee High School Football Murphy Fair.
“Tiger Talk” begins at 6:30 p.m. featuring DCHS Coach Steve Trapp and Tiger Football Players Isaac Knowles, T.J. Alexander, and Peyton Leaf. John Pryor, the Voice of the Tigers, is the host of the program.
WJLE’s “LIVE” play by play coverage starts at 7 p.m. with the Voice of the Tigers John Pryor and Luke Willoughby.