Cavaliers ready for playoffs

Published 9:48 pm Thursday, November 1, 2018

By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

It’s the waiting game for the Callaway Cavaliers.

While most teams in the state are finishing the regular season this week, Callaway wrapped things up with last week’s 56-0 victory over Jordan.

With that win, Callaway closed the regular season at 8-2 overall, and 5-1 in Region 5-AA.

The Cavaliers are in the state playoffs for the 13th consecutive season, but they don’t know who they’re going to play, or where the opening-round game will be.

Callaway’s fate will be determined with Friday’s showdown between Heard County and Bremen.

If Bremen wins, there will be a three-way tie for the region championship between Bremen, Heard County and Callaway.

Based on the region’s tie-breaker, Bremen would be seeded first, Heard County would be the number two seed, and Callaway would be the third seed.

If Heard County wins today, it would win the region title with a 6-0 record, and Callaway and Bremen would finish tied for second.

Because Callaway beat Bremen, it would earn the second seed and would host a playoff game next week.

Callaway could have won the region title by beating Heard County, but it lost 13-10 after taking a 10-0 lead in the fourth quarter.

Callaway followed that up with the convincing 56-0 victory over Jordan to complete another successful regular season under Wiggins.

Callaway has 12 consecutive winning regular seasons, and it has won eight or more games in nine of those years.

“I’m proud of our football team,” Wiggins said after the Jordan game. “We had a great week of practice. They responded from the adversity from last week. I’m proud of our guys. We’ve still got a long way to go, but everything we want is in front of us.”

In the win over Jordan, Cartavious “Tank” Bigsby added to his impressive season totals by running for 135 yards on eight attempts with a touchdown.

Bigsby, who missed one game with an injury and played sparingly in a handful of other games, has run for 1,373 yards on 125 attempts, an average of nearly 11 yards per carry.

Charlie Dixon, one of Callaway’s talented running backs, had two touchdown runs against Jordan.

Offensive linemen Keiondre Jones and Keshawn Cameron also had scoring runs.

Sophomore Demetrius Coleman got his first start of the season at quarterback, and he was outstanding, completing 10-of-15 passes for 227 yards with touchdown passes to T Bonner, Markus Morman and Dre Potts.

Coleman spread the wealth, completing passes to six players, including Bonner, who had three catches for 86 yards.

Nathan Sapp had two catches for 33 yards, and Jacob Freeman, Lamarceo Brooks, Potts and Morman each had one catch.

Freeman, who has been Callaway’s quarterback for most of the season, was the team’s leading receiver last year.

Callaway’s defense was dominant as well, and it was the unit’s fourth shutout of the season.

While Callaway was disappointed to lose to Heard County with a region title on the line, it wasn’t the end of the season, and there is plenty left to play for.

“We’re keeping a positive mindset,” Keshawn Cameron said. “Every day we’re coming out and doing that.  We took the loss, and we’ll keep moving forward. That (loss) doesn’t matter. We’ll keep going forward.”