Before last week's game at Cross County, EPC was third in the state on team defense, allowing just 190.7 yards per game. They were pitting themselves against Thunderbird Michael Boweles, who was leading the state in rushing with an average of nearly 224 yards per game or seven yards every time he touched the ball.

Something was going to have to give and it turned out to be Bowles and Cross County as the Warriors defeated the Thunderbirds 22-14 for their second conference victory of the year.

"(Cross County) was the preseason pick by most people to win the conference," said coach Bryan Harris afterward, "so going on the road and getting a win from them Friday was really big for us."

The Birds scored first on a 45-yard pass with 8:10 left in the first quarter to go up 7-0 after the successful kick.

EPC came back a few minutes later to score on a seven-yard run by Dustin Beatty. The PAT kick by Lando Bass was no good, though, leaving Cross County ahead, 7-6.

The Thunderbirds came back with 7:51 left in the half to complete another TD pass, this time for 27 yards to go up by eight points, 14-6.

For a while it looked as if the game might finish that way, but at the 9:49 point of the fourth quarter, fullback Bass pounded the ball in from the two, then ran in the conversion to tie the game at 14-all.

When Harris was asked about the difference between last week's numbers for fullback Lando Bass, who finished with 122 yards on 15 carries against the Thunderbirds, but got only three yards against Augusta the week before, Harris said that the difference was the nature of running the triple option.

"One week the fullback might get a bunch of yards," Harris said. "The next week it may be the quarterback and the next week the tailback. We just take whatever the defense give us. That's the thing about running the triple option, if we run it right, whatever the defense does, they're wrong. With Carson (Tyler) also getting 122 yards on 17 carries, that's the second week in a row we've had two backs get over a hundred yards -- and it was a different set of backs than last week."

Regulation ended with the game deadlocked at 14, so the two teams went into overtime. EPC got the ball first and Bass responded with another TD from the two. Tyler then ran in the conversion and the weight was on the Thunderbirds to respond with eight points.

Unfortunately, for Cross County, they were able to get to the three-yard line where, on fourth down, they threw into the end zone where EPC's D.J. Brister intercepted to end the game at 22-14.

"It was an all around team effort." said Harris. "We did a good job moving the ball even though there wasn't a lot of scoring. We had the ball a lot, running 64 plays to their 46 and so did a good job of controlling the ball. And defensively we did a great job on Bowles. We held him to 74 yards and out of 22 carries he had only one which was more than 10 yards. We also held the team to a total of 174 yards overall, but we got 364 total yards."

Besides getting 122 rushing, Tyler also completed 8 of 19 passes for 90 yards with four interceptions. Beatty, the team leader in rushing with 302 yards prior to Friday, was held to 24 yards on eight carries. However, he had two receptions for 40 yards to had to his total. Byron Ford, who rushed for over a hundred yards the week before, was, likewise, held far below his total with six yards on five carries and one reception for nine yards.

Also on the receiving end of Tyler passes were Bucky Chamberlin with one catch for 19 yards, Matt Powell with nine yards on one reception and Bass who had two catches for nine yards.

The Warriors are off this week, but will return for their homecoming against Salem, Friday, Oct. 10.