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Andrew Victory saw green grass and realized the impossible was about to become the possible.

Victory, the 6-feet-6, 330 pound lineman for Morristown West, had figured his chances of scoring a touchdown in his football career were slim to none.

However, on Friday night in the Citizen Tribune Kickoff Classic against crosstown rival Morristown East, Victory pounced on a fumble early in the game in the end zone for the Trojans first touchdown.

Enjoying the thrill that came with the score, Victory figured “why not make it two?”

Later in the opening quarter, Morristown West blocked an East kick and the ball fell into Victory’s hands.

Victory took off with the ball with no one in front of him, thinking he was about to find the end zone twice. Victory’s eyes got big, but he could not capitalize on his second touchdown.

Despite being tripped up Victory, and his teammates, took full advantage of East’s miscues in the contest as they took a 42-12 win over their crosstown rivals.

“I really thought he was going to score, and we were going to watch him rumble,” Morristown West coach Alvin Sanders said. “He’s fast for his size, too. He got to the sideline and told me his eyes got too big there. I’m very proud of him. He set the tone on the offensive and defensive line.”

While Victory’s eyes got too big on the blocked field goal return, he was worried about something else while trying to coral the fumble to start the game.

“I was stressing out,” Victory said. “When that ball bounced into my hands, my God dude I thought I was about to mess it up. I thought it was going to be embarrassing, but I got it.”

As a team, it wasn’t an extremely pretty game for Morristown West.

However, the Trojans picked up timely turnovers when they needed them the most and capitalized.

Because of the fumble and blocked field goal attempt, West led 20-0 in the second quarter.

Looking to respond, East’s Caleb Billings drove the ‘Canes down the field to the 21-yard line. However, with time winding down in the half, West’s Lucas Orr jumped in front of a pass and picked it off to end the threat.

Then in the third quarter with the West offense stalling out and needing some assistance, Jalen McCullough picked off a Billings pass at the East 15 yard-line. Three plays later, Cam Richards found the end zone to put the game out of reach.

“Those turnovers were huge,” Sanders said. “They happened right when the game was about to open. We were sputtering on offense, and they gave us great field position to score. Those are the kinds of things that break a team.”

One person who wasn’t sputtering on offense for Morristown West was running back Camren Richards.

A transfer from Morristown East, Richards ran for 137 yards on 13 carries and scored a touchdown.

For Sanders, he’s been looking for that performance from Richards all offseason and was excited to see the breakthrough for Richards.

“The thing about him is that he’s such a talented kid, great vision, great balance and he’s faster than people give him credit for,” Sanders said. “When he fully learns this system, he’s going to be a special kid. I need him to give me that effort everyday, and he’s going to be even better and have a special season.”

For Morristown East, the slow start and turnovers were the backbreaker as they fell behind 28-0 before finding their way onto the scoreboard.

In his debut as the ‘Canes head coach, Dallas Kuykendall said it came down to tackling in open space and fixing the small things.

“I have to do a better job,” Kuykendall said. “We didn’t tackle well and struggled with special teams. I thought our kids played hard and showed some competitive maturity at the end by not doing anything outlandish. We have to flush this thing out of the way and fix things for Thursday.”

Despite the outcome, there were positives to takeaway for East. One of those was at the quarterback position as Caleb Billings played his way into the game. Billings finished the game going 11-23 for 116 yards and two touchdowns.

“He’s a gamer and a competitive kid,” Kuykendall said. “He just kept fighting. That’s the kids first game at quarterback in front of this type of crowd. We didn’t help him much up front, and I think better days are ahead for Caleb.”

Despite the lopsided win, it wasn’t a great start for West as they drove down the field before an Austin Brannan interception gave East the ball. However, the ‘Canes fumbled two plays in and Victory recovered to put West on top.

Following a botched snap on a punt by the ‘Canes two drives later, West started their drive on the East one-yard line and needed just one play to double their advantage as Kaleb Miller plunged in for the score.

Thanks to a long kickoff return by Carter Gilliam, East looked poised to get on the scoreboard on their next drive. But the ‘Canes’ drive stalled and the blocked field goal gave West the ball back.

West then took it to the ground as they used a 12 play drive to find the end zone once again with Isom finishing things off with a one-yard run.

In the second half, the Trojans came out firing and they extended their lead to 28-0 as Isom found John Michael Rosen down the middle of the field for a 48-yard score.

East finally got on the board late in the third quarter as Billings found Branan in the end zone for a 19-yard score. West stalled on their next drive, but McCullough picked off Billings’ pass and Richards did the rest as his touchdown made it 35-6.

The two teams each scored one more time as Zion McCarthy dragged multiple East defenders with him into the end zone for a 12-yard score before Billings found Brannan down the sideline for a 38-yard score.

For Victory, the win moved his record against East during his high school career to 3-0, something he is proud of.

“It means a lot,” Victory said. “We’ve worked all offseason for this, and I feel like it’s well deserved. All this work has been so worth it. I can think of times we’ve almost cried. That hard work showed today. We had a lot of fun.”

Moving onto next week, Morristown East has a quick turnaround as they host Hardin Valley on Thursday at 7 p.m.

“We just have to get back to the basics and fundamentals,” Kuykendall said. “Just tackling and blocking. That’s the name of the game in football. At the very base level of football is blocking and tackling and we didn’t do that well tonight. We just have to get back to doing those things.”

As for West, they’ll take on Elizabethton at home on Friday at 7 p.m. Elizabethton defeated Science Hill in their opening game.

“We need to work on everything,” Sanders said. “They have championship pedigree and will come in here expecting to win. We have a lot to clean up and have our work cut out for us next week.”

Lakeway Area Football Scores

Cocke County 27, Cherokee 20

Cosby 28, Cumberland Gap 14

Harlan (KY) 46, Hancock County 6

Knox Catholic 49, Lakeway Christian 0