Vinton County went the land route and South Point took to the air as the two teams combined for 799 total yards and 71 points as the Vikings outscored the Pointers 45-26.

Saturday, August 28, 1999

Vinton County went the land route and South Point took to the air as the two teams combined for 799 total yards and 71 points as the Vikings outscored the Pointers 45-26.

Pointers coach Chris Watts

"We just couldn’t slow anybody down. We . We had a lot of young kids in there. We worked on things in practice, but when you don’t have any game experience, they react differently," said Watts. "They were quite a bit bigger than us. We couldn’t go toe-to-toe with them. But our kids played hard."

South Point, with starting running backs D. J. Bryant and Chris Conwell not playing due to an injury and an illness, took to the air as junior quarterback Jarrod Smith celebrated his first career start by hitting 12 of 31 passes for 346 yards and all four touchdowns.

Shawn Terry caught five passes for 93 yards and a touchdown while Shane Holsinger grabbed four passes for 98 yards and two touchdowns. Coleman Gorby had a 72-yard touchdown reception.

"We threw the ball well, and we dropped about 12 passes," said Watts. "We were wanting to get some balance, but without Bryant and Conwell, it makes us tough to run the ball. Those guys are over 200 pounds and their backups aren’t very big."

Vinton County rolled up 393 yards on the ground as Adam Claar gained 178 yards on 24 carries and scored three touchdowns. Phillip Lash ran 15 times for 97 yards and Travis Bethel added 62 yards on 12 attempts.

The Pointers only trailed 26-20 at the half, but they lost two costly fumbles the second half that halted scoring drives.

"All in all, when we needed to stop them, we couldn’t do it," said Watts. "And we blew some chances on offense. We had two or three drives where we fumbled or had a penalty that stopped us. If our defense could have saved us a couple of times, we might have been okay."

David Dealoia returned a punt 75 yards for a touchdown to put Vinton Co. up 6-0, and Claar ran 3 yards for a score that made it 12-0 with 3:08 left in the first quarter.

Smith then went to work and threw to Holsinger for a 3-yard touchdown play and the Pointers trailed 12-6.

Dealoia had a 6-yard touchdown run midway through the second quarter and Travis Clary’s conversion run made it 20-6.

Smith then teamed up with Gorby on the 72-yard scoring play and Smith threw to Holsinger for the conversion as the lead shrunk to 20-14.

Claar’s 11-yard touchdown run extended the lead by six, but Smith hit Terry for 12 yards and a score with just 11 seconds left in the half and it was 26-20.

Claar’s 2-yard scoring run late in the third quarter put the Vikings up 32-20. They opened up some distance when Claar had another 2-yard scoring burst early in the fourth quarter.

The Pointers answered with a 33-yard Smith-to-Holsinger pass play and it was 38-26. But Vinton County added an insurance score when Claar went 6 yards with 5:26 to play.