Bulldogs face playoff rematch with Ridgeview
Nov. 11—TAZEWELL, Va. — Playing No. 5 RidgeView (7-3) at home on Saturday gave No. 4 Tazewell (7-3) an extra day to think about their opponent in the Bulldogs' first home playoff game since 2009.
Actually, they've been thinking about it for quite a bit longer. The Wolfpack beat Tazewell 35-0 in last year's Region 2D opening round game at Clintwood.
"They lost a lot to graduation but Coach [Dewayne] Stanley had done a good job keeping them extremely competitive. They've lost to Union, Gate City and Abingdon ... all three highly-ranked playoff teams. They're young but play extremely hard. It's going to be a tough playoff game for us, no matter what," said Bulldogs head coach J'me Harris, whose team finished regular season play with a 58-28 win over Lebanon.
The Wolfpack, which wrapped up their season with a 28-0 loss to Gate City, is led by dual threat quarterback Ryan O'Quinn, who called signals for Ridgeview as a sophomore last year.
The Bulldogs have been busy making program history since the last meeting between the two teams. This year's edition has been the highest-scoring Tazewell football team of all time (354 points), in a good part thanks to having the most prolific quarterback the Bulldogs have ever fielded. For the season, Creasy has completed 193 of 303 passing attempts for 2,752 yards and a school-record 32 touchdowns.
The numbers for receivers Logan McDonald (47-927, 13 TDs), Brody Patterson (32-599, 5 TDs), Walker Patterson (28-318 4 TDs), Reece Mullins (25-279, 2 TDs) and Tyler Gillespie (24-285, 3 TDs) attest to how wide open Tazewell's offense really is. Running backs AyvRee Ziegler (107-479, 6 TDs), Kaizon Taylor (24-163, 3 TDs) and Brock Alley (30-160, 3 TDs).
"Everybody's excited about the opportunity to play in front of their home crowd and to be the first team to win a playoff game since 2008. So ... they're fired up," Harris said.
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