7A Football: Round 1 Shutouts

It’s that time of year again in High School Football. All throughout Georgia, temperatures are slowly dropping, while teams are slowly dropping off as well. This is due to the fact that playoff football is finally here within the Peach State. The state’s best teams, and prospects have already started to compete for the state championship trophy, and while some teams have won close games, or even shocked opposing teams, others have lost in horrible fashion. Within the state of Georgia, following the first round of football, there was 3 shutouts. While the 7A teams responsible for such things were expected to win each game, the way in which they won was not necessarily expected. The first shutout this past weekend occurred as Grayson took on Tift County. Because Grayson is arguably the best team in the state, it comes as no surprise that the team got the W, but the way they did so was not expected. During this match-up Jake Garcia threw for 3 TD’s, while also rushing for a TD. Along with this, Marcellis Turner also had a TD run. With this, [player_tooltip player_id="33899" first="AJ" last="Lopez"] also had a defensive TD following a fumble. During the domination over Tift, Grayson also had 4 total sacks, in which contributed to the overall defensive dominance and pressure on Tift’s offense. During the second shutout of the weekend, Discovery High saw themselves fall to Denmark, 73-0. During this match up, not only was the offense dominant, especially due to the efficiency of [player_tooltip player_id="33673" first="Aaron" last="McLaughlin"] backed by offensive weapons such as Teddy Davenport and Zach Ogbogu, but they clicked on all cylinders. Along with this, the defense saw themselves limit Discovery’s offense in time of possession, and productivity. The defensive side of the ball, led by players such as Dee Crayton, came downhill on tackles, and also produced sacks, which only continued to put more pressure on Discovery’s offensive play makers, and coaching staff. During the third shutout of the weekend, Lowndes defeated Newton 42-0. During this match up, the Vikings not only dominated time of possession, but they were unstoppable as they managed to accumulate over 20 first downs. [player_tooltip player_id="33889" first="Jacurri" last="Brown"] had a stellar night, as he racked up 4 TD passes, on only 11 attempts. Recipients of these TD’s were players such as Elijah Ellis, Chase Belcher, and Dominique Marshall. With that being said, there was a large amount of offensive success in the air, but the team also saw a total of 276 rushing yards. This only shows how unstoppable the Vikings offense was. Paired with this, the defense totaled 2 sacks as well, with almost 40 tackles, which included key stops, and QB pressures. Throughout the night, Newton struggled to not only convert, but move the ball in any kind of way. This could have been expected due to Lowndes strong defensive play this season. While each of these wins could have been expected, it will be exciting to see how dominant each team will be in the second round, especially as the competition will continue to improve. In the end, only one team will stand as the state champion for 7A football, and who’s to say that it will even be one of these teams that we just mentioned.