Henry County High School quarterback Ayden Spellings threw for 228 yards and three touchdowns in guiding the Patriot football team to a 44-0 victory over longtime rival Dickson County in a Region 7-5A matchup played Sept. 12 at Patriot Stadium.

The Patriots won the Battle of the Barrel by beating the Cougars and the barrel that sports both school’s colors along with the results of the 39 games between the two rivals will stay at the HCHS campus until next season’s battle in Dickson. The Patriots have now won nine straight games in the series and hold a 22-17 edge overall. It was the first meeting between the Patriots and Cougars since 2016. It was the largest margin of victory for either team in the long series of games.

Henry County dominated by holding a 342 to 94 edge in total yardage in the game. The Patriots had 114 yards rushing and 228 yards passing on the night.

Henry County took the opening kickoff and drove steadily downfield to score the game’s first touchdown on a four-yard run by senior Diezal Ward. Dickson County failed to field the ensuing kickoff, with the Patriot senior Dunius Ward recovering the ball. The turnover led to a 35-yard field goal by sophomore Jake Hatcher to put the Patriots in front 10-0 at the end of the first quarter.

Spellings opened the second quarter with a 35-yard touchdown pass to sophomore Ja’Kye Beard and followed with a 34-yard pass to Beard for a second score to boost the Patriots’ lead to 24-0. The first of those touchdown passes was set up by sophomore Sam Harrison’s pass interception.

After Diezal Ward scored on his second four-yard run of the night, the Patriots capped the first-half scoring on a 7-yard TD run by Spellings. That run was set up by Harrison’s second pass interception of the game. Henry

County held a commanding 38-0 lead at halftime.

The Patriot defense forced the Cougars to punt at the start of the third quarter. Henry County struck quickly with Spellings connecting with junior Deonte Ward on a 44-yard touchdown pass to up the Henry County lead to 44-0. The rest of the game passed qiuickly as the game clock was not stopped the remainder of the contest and the Patriots scored the impressive 44-0 victory to improve to 1-2 on the season. Dickson County dropped to 3-1