By Shannon Fagan, WEIS Sports Director

CEDAR BLUFF – All week long, the Spring Garden Panthers were reminded of Cedar Bluff’s one-point win over them in the closing seconds at home last football season.

It certainly served as motivation, but the Panthers didn’t get caught in the revenge trap by letting it over-hype them and make them lose focus.

If anything, the Panthers played perhaps their best game of the season.

Clayton Sadler and Connor Bates scored on the Panthers’ first two offensive plays of the game on runs of 58 and 51 yards, setting the tone in a 54-0 blowout to improve to 6-0 on the season.

“We had a good week of practice. We came out firing on all cylinders,” Spring Garden coach Barrett Ragsdale said.

“They’ve heard about last year quite a few times, but this shows the maturity of your team. They didn’t come out here over-hyped, where they were jumping offsides and doing things that were putting us behind the chains. They definitely had last year on their minds, but they came out here and did a way better job of executing I think with that in the back of their mind.”

Bates led Spring Garden’s ground attack with 116 yards on just six carries with two scores.

“We wanted it (last year’s game) to motivate us, but we didn’t want it to get us too hyped where we came out flat and didn’t start good,” Bates said. “I think that kind of motivated our start. We just kept rolling from there.”

“We were definitely pumped up about it,” Sadler said. “We had signs hanging up all week with the score all around our field house. That’s what kept us motivated. If you get too pumped up, you get unfocused on what you’re doing. You don’t read everything right. You start doing some crazy stuff, and you just can’t have that. You’ve got to be focused and disciplined and play smash-mouth football.”

And play smash-mouth football they did.

It was Class 2A No. 6 Spring Garden’s second-largest margin of victory over the Tigers in their 50 overall football meetings. The Panthers defeated Cedar Bluff 55-0 back in 2020.

Friday’s Panther win was only the seventh time Spring Garden has ever beaten the Tigers, with four of those wins coming in the last five years.

It was also the second shutout the Panther defense has posted this season. They blanked Woodville 48-0 back on Sept. 13. During Friday’s game, Spring Garden’s defense held Cedar Bluff’s offense to 20 plays with zero or negative yardage.

“That’s a hard thing to do,” Ragsdale said. “Our first ‘D’ played really hard tonight, and at the end, our young guys come in and stepped up and flew around to the football.”

“We knew we had to come out here and execute,” John Welsh said. “Last year we didn’t execute that much. I think last year they had negative yards at halftime and we let them score at the very end of the game. We played hard all game and then let it all go down the drain at the very end.”

In Friday’s game, the Panthers scored on six of their seven first-half possessions to take a 40-0 halftime lead. In addition to Sadler and Bates’ quick scores, quarterback Noah Barber connected with Welsh on a 35-yard touchdown pass to give Spring Garden a 20-0 first-quarter advantage.

Bates scored his second touchdown in the second quarter on a 13-yard run. Barber found Welsh on an 8-yard touchdown pass, and Welsh ran in for a 27-yard score for the final Panther touchdown of the half.

Welsh had 42 yards on just two carries with a touchdown. He also had three receptions for 74 yards and two scores. Barber finished the game completing 5 of 7 pass attempts for 104 yards and two touchdowns.

With a running clock in the second half, Johnny Baker and Hayes Guthrie scored on runs of 12 and 21 yards for the final.

“This year, this group I think every game has improved every week in some area of the game,” Ragsdale said. “I like the way that our kids are bought in. They all believe in the job we’ve given them, whether it’s special teams, defense, whatever. Everybody’s got a job and they’re doing a really good job buying into that and holding their own.”

Hunter Jenkins led Cedar Bluff (2-4) with 29 yards on 13 carries. Kadien Tracy added 20 yards on six totes. Bryson Teague completed 2 of 5 pass attempts for 18 yards, both of which went to Michael Johnson.

Cedar Bluff travels to Pleasant Valley on Friday. Spring Garden hosts Appalachian.