Blessed Trinity Wins Playoff Opener; Roswell, Centennial Ousted

By Mike Blum, Patch Contributor

Blessed Trinity easily advanced to the second round of the state Class AAAA football playoffs last Friday night, while Roswell and Centennial were both eliminated. The Titans will again be at home this Friday night in the second round against Oconee County.

After receiving a bye in the first round, Fellowship Christian will host Riverside Military Academy in the second round of the Class A Private school division.

Blessed Trinity 55, NW Whitfield 16

The defending state champions Titans, the top-ranked team in AAAA this season, led 49-0 in the third quarter as they rolled to their eighth straight first round win under head coach Tim McFarlin.

Blessed Trinity led 20-0 after one quarter and 39-0 at the half, with Northwest Whitfield scoring all its points in the third period. The Bruins passed for 300 yards against BT’s stout defense, but managed just 9 yards rushing.

The BT offense had a big night, with quarterback Jake Smith passing for three touchdowns and the
Titans amassing over 200 yards rushing and four TDs. Smith connected with Ryan Davis for 47 yards, Quinton Reese for 44 yards and James Bryant for 29 yards, all for scores in the opening period. Davis finished with 101 yards on four receptions, with his other three catches all helping set up BT touchdowns in the second and third quarters.

Sophomore Jackson Hamilton, who missed the entire regular season with an injury, rushed for 69 yards and two touchdowns of 7 yards each as Steele Chambers’ backup at tailback. Hamilton started at cornerback as a freshman last season, but played on offense in the Titans’ playoff opener, as Elijah Greene remained out with an injury. Green, who shared running back duties with Chambers last year, was hurt early this season and has not played since.

Chambers added 83 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries, and also set up an Ethan Chauvin 43-yard field goal with an interception in the second quarter. The Titans blocked a field goal attempt early in the game and scored a safety late in the half when they tackled a Bruins’ kick returner in the end zone. A fumble recovery set up a 44-yard field goal by Chauvin in the third period to make it 49-0.

The Titans (11-0) will host North Oconee, also nicknamed the Titans, in the second round, with North Oconee winning its playoff opener 27-8 over Sandy Creek. North Oconee (9-2) has only two wins over teams with winning records and finished second in Region 8-AAAA behind St. Pius, losing to the Golden Lions 31-21 in October.BT defeated St. Pius 35-13 in its season opener,
North Oconee made an impressive turnaround this season after going a combined 1-19 in 2016 and ’17.

Prior to that, North Oconee had reached the state playoffs 10 years in a row from 2006-15, reaching the quarterfinals in 2014.

If BT wins Friday, the Titans would play either Burke County or unbeaten Eastside of Covington in the quarterfinals. BT would be the home team if Burke County wins. If Eastside wins, a coin flip would determine the host team.

Tift County 42, Roswell 7

The Hornets came into the game as the region champions from Region 4-AAAAAAA and a state ranking earned with victories over a pair of teams that won first round playoff games.

But Tift, which was 6-4 and tied for second in the strongest 7A region in the state, played what one observer of the team said was the Blue Devils’ best game of the season and decisively outplayed the Hornets on their home field.

It was a total team defeat for the Hornets, who played poorly on defense after a promising start and appeared lost offensively without injured tailback Kamonty Jett, who was injured in the team’s ninth game of the season.

The Hornets could not muster any sort of running game, managing just 41 yards rushing on 27 attempts.

Included in that total were three sacks of quarterback Ethan Roberts and a 10-yard loss when Roberts threw a backwards pass out of bounds on what was supposed to be a double pass. The Hornets had four running plays that gained between 13 and 16 yards, but struggled to get back to the line of scrimmage on most of their other attempts to run the football.

Roberts, who had an excellent year at quarterback during the regular season, was off from the outset against Tift, and completed just 7 of 23 passes for 97 yards with two interceptions. All but 24 yards of that total came on a drive to start the second half in which Roberts completed four passes for 73 yards, including a 35-yarder to Jacob Jarrett to the Tift 3-yard line, and a 6-yard touchdown pass to Jarrett.

A fourth-down pass into the end zone fell incomplete, but a roughing the passer penalty gave the
Hornets a first down at the Tift 1. They scored on their seventh first-and-goal play.
That was it offensively for Roswell, while the Hornets’ defense allowed touchdowns on five of six Tift possessions after the Hornets started the game with back-to-back stops.

Tift rushed for 213 yards against a Roswell defense that was outmanned by Tift’s offensive line and did not have a good night tackling or playing pass defense. The Blue Devils completed 11 of 14 attempts for 149 yards.

While Tift put together a pair of sustained drives that covered more than 60 yards, the Blue Devils
started three of their scoring drives in Roswell territory after defensive stops and short punts.
Tift scored on the first play of the second quarter and twice more in the span of 90 seconds late in the half, beginning the latter two series at Roswell’s 42 and 36. Other than one possession that got as far as the Tift 30 before a fourth down interception, the Roswell offense was completely stymied in the first half, which ended with Tift ahead 21-0.

Roswell’s 80-yard scoring drive to start the third quarter gave the Hornets some brief hope, but the Roswell defense offered little resistance on a Tift scoring drive that made it 28-7 later in the period. Tift took advantage of a short field to score again early in the fourth quarter and returned an interception for a TD less than 1:30 later for the game’s final score.

Allatoona 38, Centennial 7

Playing without standout quarterback Max Brosmer, the Knights struggled offensively, with the Centennial defense breaking in the second half after a strong showing in the first two periods.

Centennial did not allow a touchdown until the final minute of the first half, with the visiting Buccaneers scoring four TDs in the second half. Centennial’s only touchdown came early in the fourth quarter on a 55-yard pass from Parker Sperier to Drake Mason. Sperier took over at QB for Brosmer, who suffered a knee injury the previous week in the Knights’ regular season finale.
Centennial (7-4) was limited to around 120 yards of offense, while Allatoona (8-3) finished with 350 yards rushing.

Riverside Military Academy at Fellowship Christian

The Paladins, seeded seventh in the 24-team field Class A Private field, faces No. 23 Riverside Military, which knocked off No. 10 George Walton 24-17 last week.

Fellowship brings a 9-1 record into the state playoffs against 6-5 Riverside Military, which earned its playoff berth with a late-season 20-19 victory over Commerce, which is 9-2 after a first round win last week in the Class A Public playoffs.

Friday’s game will be a battle of two run-oriented offenses, with the Eagles also sporting a decent
passing game. With the exception of one game, the Paladins’ passing attack has suffered since senior quarterback Brooks Bryant was injured in the team’s sixth game.

Sophomore Joey Archer has taken over as the FCS quarterback, and the Paladins continued piling up points before being shut down in the second half by Mt. Zion of Carrollton in the Region 6-A
championship game.

Fellowship is led by sophomore running back Murphy Reeves, who has piled up 1700 yards rushing and 18 touchdowns, with Jordan Brewer, also a sophomore, the team’s leading receiver.

The Paladins lost in overtime in the state title game two years ago and made it to the second round last year. The Eagles have not had a winning season since 2008.

If Fellowship wins Friday, the team’s quarterfinal game will likely be at second-seeded Savannah
Christian.

Image via Shutterstock