The Middlesboro Yellow Jackets’ fifth and sixth grade teams will be traveling to Union College on Saturday to play in their conference championship game after defeating the Williamsburg Yellow Jackets 16-6 on Thursday in Middlesboro.

Joseph Killion scored both of Middlesboro’s touchdowns on long runs. The Middlesboro defense aided the effort by recording two safeties during the game, allowing Middlesboro to post a 16-6 victory and advance to its conference championship game, slated to be played on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. at Union College in Barbourville.

“It’s been a long year,” said Middlesboro coach Diran Young. “We keep grinding and grinding, and we made it to where we wanted to be — the championship game. We are very proud of our guys.”

Throughout the season, Middlesboro has been a force in the running game. “Our running game has been strong all season,” said Young. “We lacked in blocking some times, but here in the last couple of weeks, we’ve beefed our line up and moved some people around. We played well and got the job done in this one.”

Both the fifth and sixth, and seventh and eight grade football teams have made it to their conference championships this weekend. Young believes this is a good sign for the future of Middlesboro football.

“We’re coming,” said Young. “Middlesboro football is coming. You see how the high school team has turned things around pretty quickly, our eighth grade team is undefeated and hopefully they go deep into state. Our guys look up to all of those guys. Those players are the ones they’re trying to model their game after. All we can do is lay the ground work here and move them on up.”

As a former football standout himself, Young is elated to see the state of football in the community. “We’ve been down for a while,” he said. “It feels great to have the community back into football around here and have the support of everyone. Overall with Pineville, Bell and Middlesboro too, football is back in this region and we are just trying to keep on with tradition.”

Middlesboro’s sixth and seventh grade team plays at 9:30 a.m. at Union College on Saturday. The seventh and eighth grade teams will begin at 11 a.m., following the conclusion of fifth and sixth grade action.