November 12, 2021
By: Dwayne Page
The DeKalb County Tigers will be hoping to punch their ticket to the quarterfinals of the TSSAA Class 4A football play-offs tonight but they will have to knock off the Upperman Bees at Baxter
https://www.wjle.com/tiger-talk/
WJLE will have LIVE coverage of the game with kick-off at 7 p.m. from Baxter. Tiger Talk airs at 6:30 p.m. featuring Tiger Coach Steve Trapp and Tiger football players Nolan Gottlied, Brady Hale, and Isaac Knowles. Coach to Coach will air at 5 p.m.
Both DeKalb and Upperman won their first round state play-off games last week. The Tigers defeated the East Hamilton Hurricanes at Ooltewah 35-21 while the Bees beat Soddy Daisy 46-7.
Almost a month ago Upperman came from behind in the “Battle of Center Hill” to defeat the Tigers in Smithville. In that game DC led 7 to 3 at halftime and 14 to 10 with 9:05 left in the 4th period but two late touchdowns by the Bees gave Upperman the 24-14 victory.
Although he understands the significance of the game, Tiger Coach Steve Trapp wants his team to approach it just as any other as far as preparation.
“This may be an atmosphere that some of our kids haven’t been involved in before but we’re going to embrace that. It’s still simply just a football game. That’ll be one of the last things I tell them here tonight. Its just like the first one we played, the second one, and the last one we played. We have to execute. We have to be clean. We must have that passion and a strong desire to get this win,” said Coach Trapp.
The Bees, who won the Class 4A Region 4 regular season championship at 5-0, are now 10-1 overall with their only season loss having been to Fayetteville 19-14 on September 10.
The Tigers, who finished in 3rd place in Class 4A Region 4 at 3-2, are now 7-4 overall with wins over Smith County 33-14, Cumberland County 35-10, Cannon County 49-7, Livingston Academy 45-15, Warren County 28-0 , Stone Memorial 21-20, and East Hamilton 35-21. Their losses have been to Macon County 32-29, Watertown 38-20, Upperman 24-14, and Goodpasture 21-13.
This marks the 11th consecutive State Football Play-Off appearance for DeKalb County, the most in school history.