GILMER SINKS PIRATES, 49-0 | Black Flag defense with a shutout, as Buckeyes cruise to win in district opener

By PHILLIP WILLIAMS

PITTSBURG – The reigning state kingfish Gilmer Buckeyes evidently dispatched a Western Union telegram to the winless Pittsburg Pirates’ sullen ship here Friday night plagiarizing signs which contained the confounding communique You loot, we shoot.

The Pirates’ seacraft and its Jolly Roger Flag were sent plummeting to Davy Jones’ Locker by a Buckeye Batallion which simply possessed inordinately more talent than the hosts as Gilmer poleaxed Pittsburg, 49-0, in the teams’ opening District 7-4A Division II dustup.

Third-ranked Gilmer (4-2) bopped to Beulah Land on its first four possessions, thus lunged ahead 22-0 in the first quarter and 29-0 by Twirling Time, and could likely have increased the bloodletting had Coach Alan Metzel not mercifully inserted reserves.

Not to mention that officials began running the clock non-stop no later than 2:22 left in the onslaught, and that the Buckeyes missed a field goal and sustained one blocked PAT kick.

Gilmer’s Trillyon Butler and Zade Taylor toted up two TDs each, while backup quarterback Cadon Tennison heaved two scoring slings, to lead the touchdown tirade.

The Pittsburg laddies, to their credit, showed no lack of effort to the lopsided contest’s conclusion in swooning to an 0-6 record, but were simply as helpless as termites confronting a cadre of earth’s foremost exterminators.

The hosts did not give away the candy store, so to speak, as the Pirates committed only one turnover, but exhausted their punter as they were unable to ever get near scoring. They surrendered the pigskin on downs early in the fourth quarter at the Gilmer 29, the deepest incursion they mustered toward the Buckeyes’ goal line, as Pirate QB Kord Brown and his mates endured the type of night that has folks scrambling for a treasure trove of headache powders.

The long and short of it was that Pittsburg could neither run nor pass, nor could its defense stop the Buckeyes from surpassingly doing either of those things.

Gilmer’s “Black Flag Defense,” which had yielded at least 22 points in each of its first five games, swarmed and snuffed the hosts’ offense so much that one press box observer speculated at one point that Pittsburg might not even get a first down. (But the team eventually did.)

After the Pirates punted on the game’s opening possession, Butler concluded Gilmer’s opening offensive by sprinting 31 yards down the right side with 8:58 left in the inaugural quarter. Deploying the “swinging gate” trick play, Gilmer gathered a two-point conversion on Daydrion Jimmerson’s jaunt.

Soon after another Pittsburg punt, “the Butler did it” again, this time on a 20-yard zip to the left with 4:59 left in the opening verse before Brayden Pate airlifted the first of his five successful PATs. (The last one would be blocked.)

On its next offensive outing, the Buckeyes showed they also had an air force as starting QB Brady McCown, who rendered by far his most proficient performance all season, flung a 28-yard TD to Taylor in the end zone. This came with 40 seconds still remaining in the first quadrant.

Tennison, the starting quarterback on Gilmer’s state championship team last season who ceded that post to McCown this year to play other positions, came in at his old job long enough to shoot a 25-yard TD to the right to Brendan Webb with 10:35 left to Trombone Time.

It could have been worse for Pittsburg had the normally reliable Pate not missed a 36-yard field goal with 20 seconds left to intermission.

But the Buckeyes’ bombardment resumed in the third quarter when Gilmer reeled off its final three TDs. After the visitors recovered a Pittsburg onside kickoff to start the half, Taylor soon whipped four yards to tally with 9:44 remaining.

The Pirate Stadium crowd continued to behold Buckeye bludgeoning when Jimmerson rumbled eight yards with 6:36 left, and Tennison heaved a 14-yard six-point sling to Trace Haynes with 1:36 remaining in the third.

Pittsburg’s scoreboard operator, in an unusual policy, puts no numbers (zeroes) beneath a team’s name unless that team scores. That meant that the space below “Pirates” simply remained blank all night rather than showing the number 0.

Thus, the hosts were left feeling like their patrons must have felt long ago when a certain incident occurred.

Many years ago, Gilmer and Pittsburg were arch-rivals. The Pittsburg denizens were apparently well aware that in real life, a “buckeye” is a sizeable poisonous nut which grows on trees and is mostly dark-colored when it matures.

And that once gave Pittsburg an idea.

It fell to the late Truett Rattan, who was Gilmer’s head coach from 1954 to 1966, to tell the story after his coaching days of how Pittsburg one year was inspired to hold a “Buckeye Stomp” before its game with Gilmer.

“Ruined their gym floor stomping green buckeyes into it,” Rattan recalled.