Five-win seasons just do not happen at Northside-Warner Robins. In fact, this year’s 5-5 regular season was the worst record for the Eagles since 1991 (3-7).
But after Round 1 of the Class AAAAA state playoffs, Northside is 1-0, after a 43-21 win over the Eagles’ main post season rivals, Tucker, at Adams Stadium in north Dekalb County. Northside, the No. 3 seed from Region 1AAAAAA, will move on to face the Bradwell Institute/Grovetown winner in next week’s second round.
Northside and Tucker have now met six times, all of them in the playoffs, with Tucker winning the most recent two meetings. After Friday night’s result, the series is now knotted at 3 wins apiece.
“We don’t make excuses. We had an inexperienced team and we told them this season was going to be a process,” Northside head coach Kevin Kinsler said of this year’s team. “But this group never quit. They always play hard to the end. They’re just a great bunch of kids and I love them.”
The game turned during a seven-minute stretch that spanned from late in the third quarter to midway through the fourth, where Tucker made key mistakes and failed to capitalize on two scoring opportunities.
On their second possession of the third quarter, the Tigers marched 57 yards in 11 plays, and David Davis made it count when he grabbed a flair pass out of the backfield and used his blockers perfectly on the way to the end zone for a 22-yard score which narrowed the gap to 23-21.
But Northside answered quickly on just the second play of its next possession, when senior Eric Smith barreled into the middle of the line. Tucker defenders appeared to stop the run for a short gain, but when they didn’t wrap Smith up and take him to the ground, he kept his legs churning, popped out on the other side and raced 64 yards for a touchdown to push the Eagle lead to 29-21 when the point after attempt was blocked.
The teams exchanged fumbles on their next possessions. Tucker took over on the Northside 42-yard line, but after a false start, a play that lost three yards and a dropped pass, the Tigers punted the ball back to Northside and it dribbled into the end zone for a touchback.
On the second play of the Eagles’ possession, senior quarterback Jadin Daniels kept the ball on an inside zone read, bounced outside and outran the Tucker secondary for a 78-yard touchdown to increase the Northside lead to 36-21 midway through the fourth quarter.
The Eagles went with a squib kick on the ensuing kickoff. The ball bounced past three Tucker players before a Northside player recovered at the Tiger 31-yard line. On the sixth play of the drive, senior Daniel Neal scored from four yards out for the game’s final points. Neal’s initial attempt to leap over the pile failed, but he rolled over the top of the mosh pit of players and fell into the end zone.
“We were inexperienced,” Tucker head coach Bryan Lamar said of this year’s team, which finished 7-4 but shot itself in the foot on numerous occasions. “We fought hard to stay in it and had come opportunities but we didn’t make plays when we needed to. We did a poor job of tackling and rallying to the ball, which cost us on a couple of their long touchdown runs.
“But we have a lot of experience coming back and some young kids we’re excited about,” Lamar said. “We have a lot of work to do in terms of strength and conditioning, but we’re going to keep chopping wood. That’s what we do.”
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