T.R. Miller 50, Escambia County 18
At T.R. Miller

ECHS- 0 0 6 12-18
TRM- 7 22 21 0- 50

TRM- McHenry Coleman 42-yard run (Chardian Johnson PAT)
TRM-Kameron Coleman 9-yard run (Johnson PAT)
TRM-ECHS safety
TRM-Dominique Johnson 36-yard run (PAT failed)
TRM- Kieon Smith 15-yard pass to Chandler Brown (Johnson PAT)
TRM-D. Johnson 5-yard run (Johnson PAT)
TRM-Jalen Jones 1-yard run (Johnson PAT)
ECHS-Christopher Johnson 6-yard pass to Frederick Wiggins (2-point conversion failed)
TRM-M. Coleman 2-yard run (Johnson PAT)
ECHS-Gaetyn Thames 5-yard run (2-point conversion failed)
ECHS-C. Johnson 13-yard pass to Tyderian Sims (2-point conversion failed)

By Adam Robinson
Sports editor

On a hot and muggy night at Brewton Municipal Stadium, the No. 6-ranked T.R. Miller Tigers cruised their way to a 50-18 win over the Escambia County Blue Devils of Atmore.
The Tigers of T.R. Miller used a bruising run game to take over the game and wear down the Blue Devils. T.R. Miller racked up 427 yards of rushing offense in the win and was led by McHenry Coleman’s 187 yards. Coleman ran the ball eight times and finished with two touchdowns.
“Well, I thought we had a great crowd tonight,” T.R. Miller head coach Jamie Riggs said. “This was one of the hottest and muggiest nights I think we have had in a while. We have not had a lot of this kind of weather, so one of our goals was to substitute a lot in the first half and hope it would wear on them (Atmore) some in the second half. We knew they were a little short depth-wise and I think that was the biggest thing in the game.”
Second-year Escambia County head coach Lev Holly said his team made too many mistakes Friday.
“It’s just tough man,” Holly said. “We talked during the week and our big stand was that we can’t make turnovers. We talked about not making turnovers and trying to do it the right way. You have to give credit to (T.R. Miller) coach (Jamie) Riggs. They do it the right way. They were the better team. It is not much more you can say. We are a young bunch. We will take our growing pains. We just have to come out next week. This was one of those 365-day thing where you have bragging rights and they have it for another year. But like I said, I give credit to them for the job they do with the kids. When it is all said and done though, we have to go back and look at us.”
Riggs said playing a lot of people Friday helped his team.
“The thing about it is this time of the year you need to play complete games for the conditioning aspect of it,” he said. “We can do a lot of things in practice but we can do a whole game like that. So we needed to play some and we got to play for most of three quarters. Hopefully that will help out a little bit and hopefully we got out of here without any injuries tonight. Hopefully we can get some people back here in the next few weeks who have not played yet.”
After a close first quarter that saw the Tigers only lead 7-0, T.R. Miller broke the game open in the second and third quarters. In the second quarter, T.R. Miller scored 22 points to take a 29-0 halftime lead. In the third quarter, T.R. Miller built a 43-0 lead before the Blue Devils put their first points of the 2013 season up on the board. T.R. Miller went on to outscore Atmore 21-6 in the third quarter to take a 50-6 lead into the fourth. In the fourth, Atmore outscored T.R. Miller 12-0, but the Tigers were able to hang on for the 32-point win.
T.R. Miller finished with 467 yards of total offense while Atmore had 297 with 123 coming on the ground and 167 in the air.
T.R. Miller had 237 yards in the first half with 197 coming on the ground and 40 through the air. In the second half, the Tigers had 230 total yards with all coming on the ground.
Atmore had 116 yards of offense in the first half with 57 coming on the ground and 59 in the air. In the second half, the Blue Devils totaled 181 total yards with 66 coming on the ground and 115 in the air.
On the ground, for the Blue Devils, quarterback Christopher Johnson led with 75 yards on 13 carries. Gaetyn Thames had 64 yards on 11 carries and one touchdown.
Johnson finished 16-for-28 passing with 174 yards passing and two touchdowns. Devante Williams led with six catches for 79 yards and one touchdown.
Tiger quarterback Kieon Smith went 2-for-3 with 40 yards and one touchdown to Chandler Brown for 15 yards. Kameron Coleman had the other catch for 25 yards.
“I really thought we got after it really hard tonight,” Riggs said. “I really thought we chased the ball well tonight. With the weather the way it was tonight, I was really proud of that. After I watch the film, I am sure I will see some things I will not be happy with, but for the most part I thought we played pretty hard tonight.”
T.R. Miller will travel to Opp next week to open region play while Escambia County will host Clarke County to open region play.
“The kids played hard and with a lot of effort,” Holly said. “I told them at halftime, you have nothing to lose. We just have to go out and fight and continue to fight and fight hard for me. When you are in the building stages, stuff like this is going to happen. We just have to be humble, look and this and see the positives and we will turn the corner.”
The Tigers of T.R. Miller improved their record over Atmore to 40-36-4 and earned their third straight win over the Blue Devils. T.R. Miller is now 21-4 under Riggs in season opener games. Riggs picked up his 274th overall win Friday night and with a win Friday at Opp, he will pick up his 275th all-time win. Riggs began his career as the head coach of the Opp Bobcats.