Harrison quarterback Justin Fields passed for two touchdowns and ran for two more, including one of each in the fourth quarter as the Hoyas pulled away from Allatoona for 27-10 victory in a battle of top 10 teams Friday.
The victory put No. 5 Harrison (3-2, 2-0) in sole possession of first place in Region 6-AAAAAA. Defending region champion Dalton (3-1, 1-0) and Sequoyah (3-1, 1-0) were idle Friday, while No. 10 Allatoona dropped to 2-3, 1-1.
Harrison led just 13-3 with 11:17 remaining in the game after Allatoona’s Skyler Davis kicked a 50-yard field goal. But the Hoyas answered quickly after starting at the 20-yard line following the kickoff. After three consecutive runs by Fields moved the ball to the 38, the nation’s top-rated senior recruit lofted a perfect, in-stride pass to Steven Peterson for a 62-yard score.
It was Fields’ second long touchdown pass of the night. In the first quarter, he scrambled around until he was able to find Micah Davis wide open for a 46-yard score and a 7-0 lead.
“When you’ve got [Fields] back there, and he can run around for a second, he’s going to hit someone that’s wide open,” Harrison coach Matt Dickmann said. “And those four guys that we’ve got as wide receivers and slots, they can get open against anybody.”
Fields capped his night with an 11-yard touchdown run that gave the Hoyas a 27-3 lead with 5:19 to play. He finished with 102 yards rushing on 20 carries, was 7-of-15 passing for 153 yards and accounted for 255 of his team’s 279 total yards.
Allatoona's only touchdown came on a 14-yard run by quarterback Dante Marshall with 1.8 seconds remaining to complete a drive that provided 85 of the Buccaneers’ 255 yards.
Allatoona’s Adrian Boyd, who had averaged 105.3 yards rushing in the Buccaneers’ first four games, was held to 40 yards on 22 carries. Marshall was the team’s leading rusher with 67 yards on 15 carries, and he was 8-of-14 passing for 114 yards.
“[The defense] was our concern in the spring because we’re so young in places,” Dickmann said. “We’ve got a mixture of younger and older guys, but we always said we liked their enthusiasm. We like how they come to play, and they’ve gotten better and better every week, and we really needed them tonight because we were struggling.”
Allatoona drove to the Harrison 32 on its first possession but turned the ball over on downs when Marshall was sacked for an 8-yard loss on a fourth-and-9 play. Davis’s touchdown catch three plays later made it 7-0.
Harrison’s other touchdown of the first half came after the Hoyas’ took possession at the Allatoona 17 when Davis blocked a punt. Fields had two incompletions and runs of 5 and 7 yards before scoring on a 5-yard run. Allatoona blocked the extra-point attempt, but the Hoyas led 13-0 with 2:41 remaining in the half.
“We’ve got a long way to go, but it’s always nice to be 2-0 in this region,” Dickmann said. “We’ve got to get better every week now.”
Harrison - 7-6-0-14 - 27
Allatoona - 0-0-0-10 - 10
First quarter
H - Micah Davis 46 pass from Justin Fields (Alex Raynor kick)
Second quarter
H - Fields 5 run (kick blocked)
Fourth quarter
A - Skyler Davis 50 field goal
H - Steven Peterson 62 pass from Fields (Raynor kick)
H - Fields 11 run (Raynor kick)
A - Dante Marshall 14 run (Davis kick)
