Perhaps no team, however, opened more eyes with their performance on Friday night than Coach Greg Hott’s Elkins Tigers. Few things are more dangerous than a wounded animal, and after stumbling out of the gate to an 0-2 start in 2006 EHS was exactly that. With their backs to the wall against upstart conference rival Preston County, the Tigers came out firing on all cylinders en route to an impressive 38-20 victory over the Knights, snapping a 14-game Elkins’ losing streak that dated back to 2004.

Pacing the Tigers offensive attack was a quarterback-receiver combination of Justin Pennington and Josh Smith that proved too much for PCHS, as the pair connected on three touchdowns on the night including an 81-yard back breaker in the second quarter that put EHS up 24-6 at the intermission.

Coach Hott has seen the chemistry between Pennington and Smith develop over the years, and now is his bengal-striped ranks are starting to reap the benefits of it.

“They’ve played together since they were kids,” says Hott. “They have a really have a good connection on the field.”

The win, however, took much more than just a high profile game of pitch-and-catch between Pennington and Smith as Elkins also won the edge in the trenches when it mattered most. The EHS offensive line paved the way for a ground game that saw Evan Hott churn out 80 yards on the night and senior Martin Bertelli pound his way into the endzone early in the final period to ice the victory.