Genitempo takes over for Murray County

Published 9:31 pm Saturday, September 10, 2016

Coming off back-to-back open weeks, Christian Heritage School had three weeks to find a way to do what Murray County High School’s first two opponents couldn’t: Contain Indians quarterback Dominick Genitempo.

And for one half of football, the game plan worked. The Lions dedicated extra attention to the Murray County running game and were able to shut down Genitempo and his backfield partner Tucker Gregg.

The only problem is, Genitempo can throw the ball pretty well, too.

With the running game stymied, Genitempo took to the air to get his team going. And as the game wore on, the Lions’ defense wore down, and Genitempo took over. The senior accounted for 344 total yards in a 26-14 Murray County victory.

“They gave us a really good fight,” Genitempo said after his team moved to 3-0. “They had two weeks off, they were ready for us. … They loaded the box, kind of crammed the run, so we had to go to the pass game after that.”

Christian Heritage (0-2) had success early in the game purely by keeping the ball out of Genitempo’s hands. In the first quarter, Murray County only ran three offensive plays to 14 for Christian Heritage. Then three plays into the second quarter, the Lions got on the scoreboard first when Wesley Hagan took a handoff from Brandon Poag and raced 23 yards into the end zone with a stretch over the goal line. Heath Hardaway’s extra point made it 7-0 Lions.

With time winding down in the second quarter and Murray County still scoreless, the Indians began to open things up and the offense finally got moving. They crossed the goal line when Genitempo scrambled away from pressure and found Ethan Chastain cutting across the back of the end zone. The 11-yard hook-up made the score 7-6. The extra point however knocked off the upright, keeping the Lions in the lead.

Murray County grabbed the lead just before halftime, quickly working down field and setting up Juan Andrade for a 36-yard field goal.

“(Assistant) Coach (Jeff) Williams is taking what the defense gives us,” Murray County head coach Chad Brewer said. “I have a feeling, when you have a lot of success running the ball, the teams you face are coached well too, their coaches watch film. So they’re going to stack the box and stop the run first and make us throw to beat them.”

“We talked about trying to make them do something they’re not comfortable doing, and we accomplished that,” Christian Heritage coach Jay Poag said. “We shut down the running game in the first half and it made them go to a four-wide set where they started throwing the ball on us. That was OK, they completed some but at least they were doing something they didn’t want to be doing. Then as the game went on, deep into the second half, they’ve got 90 (players) over there on their sideline and we don’t have quite that many.”

In the second half, Genitempo showed it’s tough to keep him down for a full 48 minutes. After rushing for only 29 yards in the first half, he erupted for 143 in the final two quarters. Back-to-back big runs of 35 and 41 yards put him in the end zone helping stretch his team’s lead to 16-7.

“We made some halftime adjustments, came out here, settled down, didn’t worry as much and we came out here and won,” Genitempo said. “I had a feeling they were going to put up a fight the whole game. We knew coming in they were going to fight, they were going to claw. So we fought in the second half. They gave us a good game and we came up with the win.”

Christian Heritage never did lose its fight. Right after Genitempo’s touchdown, the Lions answered when Poag hit Hagan streaking down the right sideline for a 68-yard touchdown keeping the Lions in the game.

Hagan caught five passes on the night for 108 yards.

“He’s our fastest kid and we count on him to do a lot,” Poag said of his senior speedster. “He never leaves the field. He’s on all the special teams, he’s offense, he’s defense. He had the big catch there that got us back in it. … Wes needs to play good for us to have chances, we count on him to play good every week.”

Murray County pushed it back to a two-score game when Genitempo connected with Braden Weaver on an 11-yard touchdown. Genitempo finished the night 16 for 19 for 172 yards and the two touchdowns.

The Lions gave themselves a chance to get back in the game in the fourth quarter, but the Murray County defense stepped up when needed. Corbin Southern had a big interception and Jake Chadwick added a key fumble recovery.

“I try to work my hardest on reading the offense,” Southern said. “I don’t want to get burnt at any time. I keep my cushion and don’t blow my coverage. I always work on that in practice. All of our DBs are reliable. .. I dropped one earlier, didn’t let it get me down, kept playing strong and came up with the pick and we came up with the win.”

“I’m so proud of the way our defense played,” Brewer said. “We gave up one big pass play and some stuff early in the game. Then we made adjustments and got that fixed. I know things are going to happen. People are going to throw the ball down field and have big plays, we’re going to miss tackles. We persevered. I thought our kids played faster as the game went along and we started moving some on our defensive front and they seemed to have trouble with it. And then Jake makes a big play just like he’s done all year.”

While Genitempo did his part, taking over the game in the second half, Brewer said he saw the same traits out of all his seniors.

“It’s not just him, it’s all those seniors that really, really want to win and want to get this done,” he said. “When you invest all this time and effort and energy into being a good football player you want to come out here and show it and you want to win football games. And that’s what I thought Dominick and all the other seniors did.”