On Friday, the Hapeville Charter Hornets put their 13-game win streak and Class AA No. 1 ranking on the line by traveling to Franklin to play the No. 2 Heard County Braves. For the first three quarters, it was anyone's game. But then the fourth quarter happened and the Hornets poured it on to run away with a 33-3 win.
The Hornets (1-0) entered the fourth quarter with a modest 14-3 lead before scoring 19 unanswered as part of a 26-0 second-half run.
GPB streamed the game and it can be watched in its entirety on Facebook here.
With the win, the Hornets (2-0) have a clear path to the first undefeated regular season in program history, with all but one game coming against Region 6-AA opponents in a league where they are head and shoulders above the competition. Their only remaining non-region game is on Oct. 12 against AAAAAA’s Allatoona, which is off to an 0-2 start. Not only that, but — more importantly — they’re making a strong case to become the first AA school to repeat as state champions since Buford did it from 2007-10.
The Braves (1-1), on the other hand, will lose their status as No. 2 and must find a way to get on track before region play, where they’re a member of 5-AA with No. 3 Callaway and No. 6 Bremen, both of which are guaranteed to move up in the rankings given the other top 10 teams that lost on Friday, which we’ll get to in a moment.
The Braves looked underwhelming in a 10-3 win over LaGrange in their opener two weeks ago and will face yet another tough out-of-league task next week against No. 9 Rockmart (2-0), which is currently playing at a very high level.
As for those ranked teams that lost, there are two aside from Heard County.
We'll be begin with No. 4 Thomasville, which saw its 12-game regular season win streak come to a screeching halt at the hands of AAAAAAA's No. 2 Colquitt County, which won 50-3. The Bulldogs (2-1) were clearly overmatched against coach Zach Grage's former colleagues. Grage came to Thomasville in 2016 after serving as an assistant at Colquitt County. Both the Thomasville Times-Enterprise and The Moultrie Observer have write-ups on the game.
No. 5 Brooks County lost 37-7 to Clinch County, the No. 1 team in A-public. The loss moves the Trojans record to 1-1. Juston Lewis has the writeup for the Valdosta Daily Times.
Given Friday’s developments, expect to see a reshuffled look to the new polls for next week.
Here’s how the remaining top 10 teams fared:
- The No. 3 Callaway Cavaliers earned a 14-0 shutout over LaGrange to move to 2-0. Kevin Eckleberry of The LaGrange Daily News has the writeup.
- The No. 7 Dodge County Indians beat West Laurens 22-10 to move to 2-0. WMAZ has the highlights.
- The No. 10 Dublin Fighting Irish edged Swainsboro 20-13 to move to 3-0.
- On bye: No. 6 Bremen (2-0), No. 8 Rabun County (1-1), No. 9 Rockmart (2-0)
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