BY MATTHEW LUTEY
STRAWBERRY PLAINS — Five times the Carter defense was tasked with stopping Gatlinburg-Pittman in the red zone.
Five times. Zero points allowed.
In a game where neither team scored in the second half, a statistic like that jumps off the page.
Led by its defense, the Green Hornets took down the Highlanders 21-7 on Friday at home.
“I’ll be honest with you, I felt like down here, we were playing on this end and inside the 5-yard line for what seemed like the entire 48 minutes tonight,” Carter coach Todd Helton said.
“But I’ll tell you what, our kids are growing, they’re learning some resiliency and how to handle some adversity, so I’m proud of that defense. Between the 30s we didn’t play very well, but when they got into the red zone we tightened down and played really well.
“It’s like I told them ‘sometimes you’re going to play and one side of the ball isn’t going to look good.’ Our offense was putrid in the second half tonight. But our defense stepped up and that’s what this is all about. I’ll take one of these wins over a loss any day.”
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