East Wins the Showdown at Vanderbilt!
The East Nashville verses Pearl Cohn game last night lived up to the hype of being one of the best games in Metro Nashville in quite some time. The game started with senior athlete Mario Gordon bringing his Pearl Cohn Firebirds onto the field in non traditional fashion by showcasing some of the meanest dance moves we’ve seen in quite some time to get his boys hype!
Right after kickoff Pearl Cohn quickly took a 14 point lead going into the second quarter. After some defensive stops by pearl Cohn and forced turnovers, Keshawn Vaughn scored as the result of a special teams mishap by East to go up 7-0. Mario Gordon then intercepted a pass from Isiah Upton and ran it back 17 yards to setup a consecutive possession score and a 14 point lead. At this point in the game Pearl seemed to be hitting on all cylinders. Opening up the second quarter East put together a drive to be capped off by a 42 yard rushing touchdown from Wofford commit Lennox McAfee. The two-point conversion failed however but was followed up by an East onside kick and recovery. East put together a nice drive to again be capped off buy an ankle breaking run by MTSU commit, quarterback Isiah Upton for the touchdown tying up the game after a few successful two point conversion. The game went into the half knotted up 14-14.
Coming out of the half East Nashville put up two quick touchdowns, one of them again by Isiah Upton shaking several defensive players for the touchdown. At this point in the game East Nashville seemed to have all of the momentum and Pearl Cohn looked like they were done. But to the surprise of everyone at the stadium Pearl still had plenty of fight left in them. Junior quarterback from pearl Cohn, Jimmy Ferrell, had an amazing touchdown pass to Ke‘juan Vaughn. Early in the fourth quarter East fumbled the ball on their own 5 yard line to give the ball to Pearl Cohn deep into East territory, the very next play Pearl Cohn fumbles it to give the ball right back to East which they eventually capitalized on with a 1 yard touchdown run from McAFee to up the lead 32-21. This game was nowhere close to being over at this point going into the 4th quarter. Keshawn Vaughn scored on a touchdown run with a successful two point conversion to edge closer to the Eagles lead 32-29. After a strong defensive stand by Pearl led by senior linebacker Koreyon Jordan, East was forced to punt the ball. At this point pearl quarterback Jordan Ferrell put together a nice drive capped off with the 9 yard go ahead touchdown run to take the lead 36-32 with under 4 minutes left in the game. After the score the game seemed all but over when pearl kicked off to East. Upton and the Eagles having to start a drive deep in their own territory went several plays before capping off before the go ahead touch down for the win by McAfee with only seven seconds left on the game clock.
This game definitely live up to the hype and was one of those games that you’ll remember for years to come. And in our personal opinion here there was no loser in this game. Both teams played their hearts out and when the final second ticked off both squads showed great sportsmanship on the field. Both teams have a lot to be proud of moving forward throughout the rest of the season and going into the playoffs late into November. There is no reason neither one of these Middle Tennessee schools couldn’t make it up to Cookeville in December.
