The Middlesboro Yellow Jackets middle school football team won the first game of their conference tournament on Tuesday night, defeating Lynn Camp 48-6 in Middlesboro. With the victory, the Yellow Jackets advanced to the championship game, which will be played on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Union College.

Middlesboro will face off against Williamsburg, who they defeated earlier in the season 20-6.

“We did a good job of getting the guys to focus on this game and not look ahead to Williamsburg,” said Middlesboro coach Charlie Lambert. “We prepared for this game very well. We had the team watch some film on themselves and break down some of the things that we hadn’t been doing as well. I felt like with all the preparation, we had a pretty good understanding of our concepts and what we wanted to do against Lynn Camp.”

The Yellow Jackets wasted no time in showing the Wildcats that their defense could hold. In Lynn Camp’s first possession of the game, Middlesboro held them to -10 yards. The Yellow Jackets’ first possession of both offense and defense would be indicative of the flow of the game.

As well as coming out hot on defense, Middlesboro quickly found the end zone on their first offensive drive. The Yellow Jackets’ first play from scrimmage resulted in six points as Cayden Grigsby hit Rylee Foster for a 70-yard touchdown pass. After an unsuccessful two-point conversion, Middlesboro led Lynn Camp 6-0.

After regaining possession, the Wildcats were unable to get much going on the offensive side of the ball. On a third down rush attempt Kamron Wilson forced a fumble from the Lynn Camp ball carrier, allowing Middlesboro to regain possession. One big run from Wilson led to a 24-yard touchdown pass from Grigsby to Jack Yoakum to give the Jackets their second touchdown in only three offensive plays from scrimmage. After a successful two-point conversion from Grigsby, Middlesboro led 14-0.

On the ensuing Lynn Camp possession, the Wildcats were again unable to sustain any sort of consistency or offensive rhythm, allowing Middlesboro to regain possession. Again, the Jackets wasted no time in finding the end zone as Grigsby scampered for 40 yards and another touchdown. A successful conversion from Grigsby to Jonathan Parton gave Middlesboro a 22-0 lead heading into the half.

With the game in hand, Middlesboro continued to play solid on both sides of the football during the second half, limiting Lynn Camp to just six points. The Jackets continued to dominate on offense as they added 26 more points to their total in the second half, allowing them to secure a 42-point victory.

“This was a good win for us,” said Lambert. “It’s nice to have a quality win against a quality opponent before going into the championship game. Lynn Camp is a good team and they play tough, so any time we can win like that speaks volumes to what we are doing.

“We played Williamsburg earlier this year and kind of shot ourselves in the foot during the first half. They kicked an onside kick to start the last game and kind of threw us off a little bit. We moved the ball well against them last time in the first half, but ended up having two costly turnovers that really hurt us. We had a couple of touchdowns called back for penalties as well. Realistically, we should have went into the half with a 22-0 lead.

“We know that Williamsburg is going to come out ready. They’re coached very well and they know how to make adjustments well. We want to do things the right way, with limited penalties and mistakes. If we play like we are capable, we can win this game. We set the goal of winning our conference before the season started and we will get our shot on Saturday.”