It was a familiar sight for Cyclone Football fans on Friday night, as Betsy traveled to Rogersville to take on their fourth undefeated team in five games in the form of the Cherokee Chiefs.

Elizabethton was not fazed, beating Cherokee to the punch early and often, securing a 30-7 victory that cemented head coach Shawn Witten as the winningest coach in program history.

On their first defensive drive of the game, the Cyclones shifted momentum when Jack Blevins tipped a Cherokee pass, allowing Zack Wallin to intercept it and set the offense up inside enemy territory at the 10 yard line. That would set up Rhett Slagle to call his own number from the one yard line, scoring to make it 7-0.

Fast forwarding to the second period, William McDuffie would take the ball across the goal line from five yards out to increase the Betsy advantage to 14-0.

Not long after, Slagle would find Wallin on a short pass, where the receiver would find paydirt from 15 yards out to give Elizabethton a 21-0 lead. Will Bowers would add a 35 yard field goal as time expired in the first half, making it 24-0 at the break.

Bowers would add two more field goals in the second half, from 31 and 36 yards out. Cherokee finally got on the board with under a minute to go in the game, making the score a more respectable 30-7 as time ran out.

In the game, Slagle threw for 121 yards and a score, as well as a touchdown on the ground.

The Cyclone offense added 200 yards on the ground, the most this season. Of those yards, C.J. Mathes contributed with 82 on 13 carries.

With the victory, head coach Shawn Witten became the winningest coach in program history at 174 wins. Witten surpasses his grandfather, the legendary Dave Rider who coached Elizabethton for 23 seasons.

"I'm just fortunate enough to be in a really good program, you know, and have had really good teams. Our program has always been about blue collar, it's never been about talent. It's built on toughness and hard work and grit," Witten said. "We got back to that a little bit tonight, you know, and that was really great. "There was a tradition already here set by Coach Rider, and we're just trying to carry on those footsteps each and every day, and just leave it better when we found it."

The Cyclones improve to 4-1 on the year and 2-0 in conference play, and are back home this Friday, September 26th for Homecoming against the Northview Cougars.