Forrest blanks Cascade Middle

Cascade's Tyler Wilson tries to find room to run. (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

Every once in a while you just have to tip your hat and tell your opponent, "Job well done."

Forrest Middle continued the six-year stranglehold they've had over Cascade Middle by taking down the host Champions 36-0 in front of a homecoming crowd.

The Rockets (5-0) held a slim 6-0 upper hand after a quarter. Just as those in attendance were readying for a bathroom break and a trip to the concession stand at halftime, the Chapel Hill boys pulled off some trickery as a double pass resulted in a 46-yard touchdown from Blake Tansil to Zach Horvath with 31 seconds on the clock. Tansil then ran in the two-point conversion to put them up 14-0.

Forrest continued with their aerial assault early into the third quarter when Zach McCoy hauled in a 67-yard bomb from quarterback Dakota Zimmerman. Just 2:15 later, Horvath intercepted a pass and zigzagged his way 54 yards to paydirt. Cameron Edwards caught the conversion pass from Zimmerman that made it 28-0.

"We knew they were big, fast and strong," Cascade coach David Parker said. "We knew we had to play well, and I thought we did play well. The score at halftime should have been 6-0. We let him get by us there. They got by us and scored deep on us a couple times and the wheels fell off and just didn't recover from it."

Much of the fourth-quarter participants stood under or right at 5-feet tall as both coaches emptied their benches.

Keaton Strong tripped to the end zone from a yard out and Amani Phipps added a two-pointer to cap the Rocket scoring with 2:02 left in the game.

"The twos played hard; they wanted to play," Parker said. "When (assistant) coach (Jake Tyre) looked around and said 'Who wants to play?' everybody raised their hand. They're excited about playing. A lot of them haven't played a whole lot of ball. They went in and played hard."

Cascade (1-4) heads to Moore County on Sept. 18.