Game Recap: Cedartown Beats Denmark 7-3 In Major Defensive Battle

ALPHARETTA - Sloppy play is always expected in the first week of the high school football season, and that’s exactly what we got in the Cedartown/Denmark game. The Denmark Danes, a young, talented team with lots of D1 talent, hosted Georgia Bulldog commitment <span class="atwho-inserted" data-atwho-at-query="@C.J"><b><a href="https://dawgpost.com/players/11490/cj-washington">[player_tooltip player_id="33869" first="C.J." last="Washington"]</a></b></span>‍ and the Cedartown Bulldogs. Neither team could get any type of offense going, but in the end, Washington led his Bulldog team to a tough 7-3 win on the road. Cedartown came into the game with one thing on their mind. Running the football, and running it right up the middle. A smaller school in the Rome area, the Bulldogs have a lot of two-way players on the team, so in order for them to build chemistry on offense, they need to keep it simple and run the ball. They ran the Wing-T offense against Denmark this weekend and couldn’t get much going on at all. The Danes offense didn’t fair much better, and wasted a golden opportunity in the 1st half when they forced a bad Cedartown punt. They took over in the Bulldog’s red-zone and ended the drive with a missed field goal. Both teams had trouble moving the ball and it led to a bland 0-0 score at the half. When both teams run the ball a lot, the clock is always running, and the game gets a lot shorter. The first half flew by with both teams trading punts back and forth. While it didn’t work much in the first half, Cedartown kept pounding the ball up the middle and found some success in the 3rd quarter. Junior fullback Patrick Gardner, a bowling ball of a fullback at 250-pounds, kept driving the ball inside over and over again down the field, finally reaching the end-zone for the game’s first score. https://twitter.com/MattDeBary/status/1428887003282743296?s=20 The score was all they needed as the Bulldog defense forced turnover after turnover in the 2nd half. The Danes had little success on the ground in the run game, but even worse success when they tried to move the ball in the air. A big reason why Cedartown kept Denmark in check was because of the play of star player CJ Washington. One of the top players in the entire state, Washington played on both sides of the ball for the Bulldogs and was able to run the ball hard and effectively at running back. The Bulldogs ran the Wing-T all night and made sure to give Washington his share of carries throughout the night. He kept the chains moving, showed good footwork, and was able to break tackles in the 2^nd level once he got through the line of scrimmage. At linebacker, Washington didn’t see many runs come his way as the Denmark offense ran lots of zone-reads to try and take him out of the picture. He was trying to run down plays on the other side of the field all night and still made a handful of tackles. He got off blocks well and really shined on the goal-line when Denmark was desperate for a score. The 6-foot-1 220-pounder was physical at the point of attack showed that he can get after the passer as well, forcing multiple pressures when the Danes went to the passing game. Overall, it wasn’t the most exciting game, but it was a hard-hitting performance by both defenses. Denmark’s defense played well the entire night and did a great job of rallying to the football, but the constant miscues on offense let them down in the end.