On Friday, September 22, the Karns Beavers faced the Fulton Falcons for a non-conference away game. Karns pulled off their first win of the season, beating Fulton 7-6 in a nail-biter on Fulton’s home field. This win boosted Karns to a 1-5 record, while Fulton is now sitting at 0-6. There were many things that contributed to the Beavers’ win on Friday. Karns’ offense accumulated 261 total yards, with their first 100 yard passing game and 161 rushing yards. The Karns defense practically lived in Fulton’s backfield, totaling 7 tackles for loss, 3 quarterback hurries and 1 sack. The whole team showed huge improvements compared to their last few games, but a few players in particular really showed out this game. Doug Turner led the way with 142 total yards, as well as a 76 yard touchdown, which would end up being the score that won us the game. Kareem Ellis led the defense with 5 tackles, 1 tackle for loss and 2 quarterback hurries. Alex Idol won Knox County Defensive Player of the Week with 4 tackles, 1 tackle for loss, and 1 sack. Turner also had a teammate who he felt played very well against Fulton.
“I’d say Carson Paul has done a good job, he’s our new quarterback, but he’s stepped up to the plate and played well,” said Turner.
Paul is a junior quarterback who is currently playing his first year as the starter. Both Paul and Turner had similar ideas as to why they won against Fulton.
“We played as a team…we’ve been working on that, we just gotta learn to trust each other and that results in wins,” Paul said.
“We finally walked in as a team and played together, we knew our assignments, and we were right where we needed to be,” Turner said.
While Karns did walk away as the winning team, there were still some improvements that needed to be made. The tackling still needs some work, as Fulton was breaking a lot of tackles and gaining a lot of yards because of it. Paul had his own thoughts on what he thinks the team needs to do better.
“We need to get better at our specific jobs, we can’t have a bunch of people doing their own thing out on the field,” Paul said.
Turner had a slightly different opinion on what the team’s biggest concern should be going forward.
“I’ll just say that we need to take conditioning more seriously, because once we do that, we’ll be better conditioned and more ready for the game,” Turner said.
The Beavers will take the field next on Friday, September 29, when they will face Powell at home for a non-conference game. The Panthers have a 4-2 record and are coming off of a 34-17 win over Halls.
Turner and Paul had some messages for the fans about not only the Powell game, but the rest of the season as well.
“Don’t give up on Karns yet, we’re still here…hopefully we can come out with the dub and play as hard as we can,” Turner said.
“Just keep showing up. Show up and keep us hyped,” Paul said.
The Karns student section theme is “Frat Night.” Let’s show our school spirit against Powell, go Beavers!
