On Friday, September 15, the Karns Beavers hosted the Heritage Mountaineers for their homecoming matchup. Heritage ended up winning 56-21 over the Beavers, but neither team failed to put on a show. Both schools had large turnouts for the game, with the Karns student section being completely full and many Karns students overflowing into the grass around the field. The Beavers’ theme was blackout, with Karns unveiling their new black and yellow jerseys for the game(see above). 

Both teams showcased explosive offensive attacks, with Heritage accumulating 531 all-purpose yards and Karns gaining 565 yards. Despite the similar totals, these two offenses couldn’t be more different. Heritage ran a much more pass-heavy offense, with 312 passing yards to Karns’ 86 yards. Meanwhile, the Beavers focused heavily on the run, gaining 258 rushing yards to the Mountaineers’ 188 yards. Karns seemed to have the most success on special teams, totaling 190 kick return yards, including a huge 85-yard kick return touchdown by Warda Apiat, which was his first touchdown of the year and the biggest play of the season for the Beavers.

One of Karns’ team captains, Walker Lockhart, said that the reason Karns produced so well on offense was that they had a good plan to attack the Heritage defense. 

“We had a very good game-plan going into the game, with a lot of different stuff incorporated into the plan,” Lockhart said.

While this was a very high scoring game, the defenses had no shortage of big plays either. On Karns’ side, Seniors Kareem Ellis and Walker Lockhart lead the way, with Ellis having 2 tackles for loss and Lockhart having 2 interceptions. 

“My boy Walker Lockhart had 2 picks, he’s been going crazy for us,” Ellis said.

The Beavers had highs and lows throughout the game, showing many of their strengths and weaknesses.

 “I’d say in the 1st half we were really playing as a team and playing together,” team captain Kareem Ellis said. 

Ellis said that the team really needs to “come together as a passing team” in order to have better performances in the future. Lockhart believes that if they go into every game with the mentality that “the other team owes us…we gotta go beat them,” then they will be more successful in the upcoming games.

Karns will take the field next on Friday, September 22, when they will play an away game at Fulton. The 0-5 Beavers will face a 0-5 Falcons team that is coming off of a 26-35 loss against Gatlinburg-Pittman. The Karns student section theme is “jersey night,” so expect students to be decked out in their favorite players’ jersey for the game. Let’s show out against Fulton, go Beavers!