Blessed Trinity Defeats Marist To Win Region Title

By Mike Blum

ROSWELL, GA — A dominant defensive performance by Blessed Trinity lifted the Titans to a 10-7 victory at home Friday night over Marist, and secured the Roswell team a Region 7-AAAA title.

The BT defense did not allow a point, with Marist’s only score coming on an interception of a deflected pass from inside the Titans’ 10 in the opening quarter. The usually efficient Marist offense was held to 72 total yards, 36 rushing and 36 passing. The War Eagles managed only six first downs, two on penalties, and crossed midfield just once before suffering a quarterback sack on third down from the BT 32 in the second period.

The Titans’ offense was equally dismal for the first 21-and-a-half minutes of the game. BT had no first downs on its first four possessions, ending the first quarter with minus 8 yards of offense. But BT put together a 10-play, 86-yard drive in the final three minutes of the first half, scoring on a 24-yard pass from Jake Smith to tight end/fullback J.D. Bertrand.

After being bottled up in the opening period, tailback Steele Chambers gained 7 and 18 yards on the first two plays of BT’s scoring series, and Smith hit standout receiver Ryan Davis for 10 yards and a first down. Chambers picked up eight yards again as the Titans crossed midfield, and Smith was hit late on the sidelines to move the Titans inside the Marist 25 with 20 seconds on the clock. Bertrand slipped through the Marist defense and got wide open on a play-action pass for his first touchdown reception of the season to tie the game.

Even though the Titans scored only three points in the second half, they completely controlled play. Marist ran only 13 plays from scrimmage for a total of 37 yards, while BT drove inside the Marist 20 on three occasions, mostly on the determined running of Chambers. Chambers carried 28 times for 139 yards in the second half, including 12 consecutive times for 68 yards on a drive that consumed eight minutes of the fourth quarter with BT leading 10-7. Chambers finished with 168 yards on 39 attempts.

The drive ended when the Titans were stopped on fourth down inside the Marist 15, but left the War Eagles with just over two minutes to drive almost the length of the field with no timeouts. Marist completed a pass for 14 yards on the first play, but Davis made a great effort to stop a screen pass on fourth-and-10, fighting through a blocker to force an incomplete pass.

The Titans had threatened to take a lead when they drove 61 yards to start the second half, but stalled inside the Marist 20. Davis had two receptions for 33 yards and Chambers added gains of 11 and 16, but Ethan Chauvin’s 36-yard field goal attempt was wide right.

Blessed Trinity quickly got the ball back when lineman Regan Smith recovered a Marist fumble at the War Eagles’ 39. Chambers carried four straight times for 26 yards and Davis made a 13-yard catch to get the Titans to the Marist 4. But Chambers was stopped for no gain on third-and-1 and BT coach Tim McFarlin sent in his field goal unit, with Chauvin connecting from 21 yards out on the first play of the fourth quarter.

“Those are two really good defensive teams,” said McFarlin, with the game more reminiscent of last year’s state championship than the regular season games between the teams in 2016 and 2017.

(For more news like this, find your local Patch here. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here)

Blessed Trinity won the state title game 16-7 last December at Marist, with the game postponed a week and moved from the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium due to bad weather in metro Atlanta. The regular season games ended with scores of 28-26 and 25-24, with the Titans winning the first ever meeting between the teams at Marist in 2016, and the War Eagles winning last year at BT on a late touchdown and 2-point conversion.

Marist denied the Titans what would have been a fifth straight region title last year, but BT made a remarkable run in the playoffs, winning its last four games on the road against four of the top teams in the state in AAAA . The Titans have fought injuries for much of the season, but have been gradually getting healthier, and should be very close to full strength when the playoffs start Nov. 9.

“We’re on the mend a little bit,” said McFarlin, whose team has survived two close calls in recent weeks
after rolling through a tough non-region schedule to start the season.

McFarlin pointed out that the Titans struggled offensively two weeks ago in an overtime win over Flowery Branch and said “we looked really bad” for the first 21 minutes Friday night. But BT recovered from its stumbling offensive start to move the ball effectively the rest of the game against Marist, although three drives into the red zone produced a total of only three points.

“I apologized to the defensive staff for giving them seven points,” McFarlin said of the interception return for a Marist touchdown, Smith’s first interception of the season.

The pass attempt was batted in the air behind the line of scrimmage and grabbed by a Marist defender for an easy score. But that was it for the War Eagles, as the stout BT defense turned in its best effort of the season. Bertrand, Chambers, lineman J.R. Bivens and sophomore linebacker Ryan Dupont keyed the BT defense, along with an outstanding effort by the Titans’ secondary. Led by cornerback Quinton Reese and Davis from his free safety position, the Titans held Kyle Hamilton, one of the state’s most highly recruited athletes, to only one reception, with the two teaming up to prevent a possible Hamilton touchdown catch early in the game.McFarlin helped make up for the six points the offense handed Marist on the interception return.

“Any time you play Marist it’s a chess match,” he observed. “We caught them in a blitz and the fake took
care of it."

McFarlin had some tough fourth-down decisions to make in the final period, and was rewarded for his choices. He settled for the field goal on fourth-and-1 from the Marist 4 to put the Titans ahead, and went for it on fourth-and-4 later from the 13.

“There’s no real difference between being six or three points ahead, and we would rather keep the ball down there” instead of attempting another field goal, he explained.

Blessed Trinity, the top-ranked team in AAAA the entire season, is 5-0 in the region and 9-0 overall, and closes out its regular season schedule Nov. 2 at home against White County, which is likely to miss the
playoffs.

The Titans will get two homes games to start the playoffs, opening against the loser of the Nov. 2 game
between Northwest Whitfield and Heritage, Catoosa.

Image via Shutterstock