By Kris Freeman
White House Football

There are some things which have become a certainty in the short Sumner County rivalry between Beech and White House - the games will be close, be physical, be defensive and be decided in the fourth quarter.

And for the seventh time in eight tries, Beech (3-2) came out on top with a 12-7 nailbiter against the neighbors from the north side of Tyree Springs. For the fourth time in the last five meetings, the game was decided by five points or less. White House is now 2-27 all-time against teams from Hendersonville, though many of those games came in the earlier days of the program (1-7 against Beech, 1-20 against Hendersonville). The only time White House has beaten Beech was a 2005 meeting when the Blue Devils rallied from three scores down.

White House (3-2) opened the game by muffing the kickoff, and Beech's Josh Martin connected on a 39-yard field goal and a 3-0 lead. Ronquez Beech added a 30-yard touchdown run, but Martin's extra point was missed for a 9-0 edge in the first half, yet White House managed to come back with ball control and cut the margin.

The Blue Devils mounted a 12-play, 76-yard drive in the second quarter, as DeMarqus Payne, Bryan Dixon and Trox Greenwade combined to run all 12 plays up the center of the line. Dixon cashed in a touchdown from one yard away and Zack Trobaugh's extra point made it 9-7 with three minutes to play in the second quarter.

White House held on defense with seconds remaining before halftime, moved into the red zone on a 41-yard completion to Matt Parker. But Greenwade, who was pressured by the Buccaneers defense all night, failed to convert on two attempts at a touchdown, with one pass bouncing off a receiver's hands, and the second down play resulting in a sack. Trobaugh lined up to kick a go-ahead field goal from 32 yards, and it was blocked out of bounds by Taylor Stewart. Beech held a 9-7 edge.

Both defenses remained strong, but a single-play lapse but Beech in field goal territory again with 2:21 left in the third quarter. Clint Meadows found J.D. Baites behind the defense for 50 yards to the Blue Devils' 21, and three plays later Martin nailed a 32-yard attempt for a 12-7 lead.

After an exchange of punts, White House began another methodical drive with 8:41 to go in the game, and seemed prime to take the lead. The Blue Devils marched 13 plays and 57 yards, but with first down at the Beech 19 could only manage four more yards. Payne was stopped on a sweep on 3rd-and-4 for a loss of one, and Greenwade's fourth down pass was broken up by Levi Merritt and Ronquez Beech to turn the ball over on downs. Beech took over with 2:58 left and White House used all three timeouts to force a punt with 1:14 remaining.

Martin boomed another kick and White House was backed up at its own 33 with just over a minute to go, and with no timeouts the clock ran away as Greenwade missed on passes to Chad Neal and Parker, then was sacked on third down. The fourth down attempt was intercepted by Merritt in the middle of the field and returned to the Blue Devils 25 as the game ended, 12-7.

Both teams are now 3-2 as the meat of the region schedule begins. White House will travel to Sycamore to face another team which has given the Blue Devils fits in a short rivalry. The Blue Devils do have a region win under their belt at 1-0.

For Friday's game, it was a defensive struggle and both teams managed just over 210 yards of total offense. White House rushed 47 times for 172 yards, but Greenwade was just 3-of-11 passing for 55 yards, the lowest passing output of his young career. He was sacked three times.

Beech ran 39 times for 143 yards and completed 2-of-7 passes for 69 yards. The star of the game may have been Martin, who punted six times for an average of 40.7 yards and booted both field goals through the uprights. Greenwade also kicked six times for the Blue Devils for an average of 39.5.

White House was 4-of-13 on third down, missed both fourth down tries, and was just 1-of-3 in the red zone, despite dominating time of possession with 32 minutes of the clock to Beech's 16.

Payne was the leading rusher with 20 carries for 99 yards and Dixon added 67 yards on 18 carries with a touchdown. Bobby Huey was the leading rusher for Beech in a balanced attack with nine carries for 44 yards. Michael Barrett led the White House defense with 11 tackles, followed by Adam Wiss with 10, Eric Dorris and Matt Parker with six.

White House travels to Sycamore, leading the series 4-2 including the last three straight. But the War Eagles were one of the surprise teams in Region 4-3A last season, springing into the playoffs and nearly running all the way to the semifinals before losing to Pearl-Cohn. White House has never held the War Eagles under 10 points in the six games of the rivalry, so Sycamore has shown the ability to consistently move the football.

White House has won by an average margin of 22-15.

Rivalry History

1980 - Beech, 21-20
1981 - Beech, 28-0
1982 - Beech, 20-6
1999 - Beech, 22-14
2000 - Beech, 7-6
2005 - White House, 31-28
2006 - Beech, 21-7
2007 - Beech, 12-7
Beech leads overall series, 7-1

Box Score (Final) White House vs Beech (09-28-2007 at Hendersonville, TN) Score by Quarters 1 2 3 4 Score ----------------- -- -- -- -- ----- White House......... 0 7 0 0 - 7 Record: (3-2,1-0) Beech............... 3 6 3 0 - 12 Record: (3-2,1-0) Scoring Summary: 1st 10:14 BEECH - Joshua Martin 39 yd field goal, 4-5 0:00, WH 0 - BEECH 3 2nd 09:28 BEECH - Ronquez Beech 30 yd run (Joshua Martin kick failed), 6-67 2:32, WH 0 - BEECH 9 02:53 WH - Bryan Dixon 1 yd run (Zack Trobaugh kick), 12-76 3:50, WH 7 - BEECH 9 3rd 02:21 BEECH - Joshua Martin 32 yd field goal, 6-53 2:42, WH 7 - BEECH 12 WH BEECH FIRST DOWNS................... 14 8 RUSHES-YARDS (NET)............ 47-172 39-143 PASSING YDS (NET)............. 55 69 Passes Att-Comp-Int........... 12-3-1 7-2-0 TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS..... 59-227 46-212 Fumble Returns-Yards.......... 0-0 0-0 Punt Returns-Yards............ 2-19 4-42 Kickoff Returns-Yards......... 4-39 2-11 Interception Returns-Yards.... 0-0 1-30 Punts (Number-Avg)............ 6-39.5 6-40.7 Fumbles-Lost.................. 3-1 1-0 Penalties-Yards............... 3-15 2-12 Possession Time............... 31:46 16:14 Third-Down Conversions........ 4 of 13 3 of 12 Fourth-Down Conversions....... 0 of 2 0 of 1 Red-Zone Scores-Chances....... 1-3 1-1 Sacks By: Number-Yards........ 0-0 3-12 RUSHING: White House-DeMarqus Payne 20-99; Bryan Dixon 18-67; Trox Greenwade 9-6. Beech-Bobby Huey 9-44; Cody Langston 9-38; Ronquez Beech 4-34; Taylor Stewart 2-10; Matt Shanes 1-7; Clint Meadows 2-6; Justin Allen 12-4. PASSING: White House-Trox Greenwade 3-11-1-55; Bryan Dixon 0-1-0-0. Beech-Matt Shanes 1-4-0-19; Clint Meadows 1-3-0-50. RECEIVING: White House-Matt Parker 1-41; Zack Duty 1-11; Kirk Fulghum 1-3. Beech-John David Baites 1-50; John Taylor 1-19. INTERCEPTIONS: White House-None. Beech-Levi Merritt 1-30. FUMBLES: White House-Matt Parker 1-0; Zack Duty 1-1; Trox Greenwade 1-0. Beech-Clint Meadows 1-0. SACKS (UA-A): White House-None. TACKLES (UA-A): White House-Michael Barrett 8-3; Adam Wiss 2-8; Matt Parker 5-2; Eric Dorris 5-1; Chad Neal 4-2; Zack Duty 4-2; DeMarqus Payne 3-1; Will Vick 3-1; Vincente Dominguez 3-0; DeMarrius Payne 3-0; Kaleb Ausbrooks 1-2; Walter Draper 0-2; Bryan Dixon 1-0; Jesse Guthrie 1-0; Caleb Eidson 1-0; Rogers Gaines 1-0. Beech-None.