Despite graduating key players from last year’s championship team, Ryan Herring sees a high ceiling for his Pierce County team this season.
The Bears ended last season with a 13-7 overtime victory against Oconee County in the state championship game at Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium to win the program’s first state title.
“We did lose some really good football players last year,” said Herring, two games into his third season at Pierce. “We still have a really good core back. We have some real good seniors, but we don’t have quite the depth we had last year.”
Pierce is 1-1 and ranked No. 3 in the class behind No. 1 Cedar Grove (1-0) and No. 2 Oconee County (2-0). The Bears lost the season-opener to Class 6A No. 10 Brunswick, 20-13, in a game where several top players were out. The loss wasn’t meaningless, but it had little impact on the team’s position in the rankings.
“We had four starters out for the Brunswick game,” Herring said. “Not making excuses, but that didn’t help us. We had (sophomore) Elijah Howard out, (junior CB/WR) Jaquez White was out, and several backups were out.”
In pandemic times, it’s harder to speculate why any program has players sidelined. Was the player injured or was it COVID?
“We didn’t get hit too hard in the area last season by COVID,” Herring said. “But this year, we have already been hit way harder the last two weeks than we did the whole season last year.”
The entire county has been hard-hit. Pierce, located just to the west of Brunswick, was averaging two cases per day (per 100,000 people there were 11 cases on average) two months ago.
As of Aug. 29, the county has averaged 33 new cases per day and 175 people have COVID-19 per 100,000 people. Pierce County has a population of around 14,000 people.
There have been similar refrains and numbers from many programs in the state. The number of cancellations continues to increase, casting similar doubt as last season about whether competition will make it through the fall and winter. Most school systems, at this stage of the game, aren’t requiring masks and haven’t set crowd limitations.
So teams try to make the best of the situation.
“We are having to build depth, so we have some playing both ways, and we have been conditioning for that,” Herring said.
Last season, Pierce was balanced on offense under quarterback Jermaine Brewton and averaged nearly 200 rushing yards and 140 receiving yards per game.
This season, Pierce favors the run ... or at least it has through two games. The Bears are averaging 125 rushing to just 37 receiving yards per game. The offense has managed four touchdowns – three rushing (Daytin Baker, Danarius Johnson and Donelius Johnson) and one passing (Baker to Knox Bennett). Expect those numbers to improve in region play.
But before entering Region 1-3A competition, Pierce will have to face two tough tests against ranked teams at home. The Bears will travel to A-Public Claxton Friday and Clinch County on Sept. 17 before the fireworks start.
On Sept. 24, the Bears will play host to Class 2A No. 3 Fitzgerald, then play 2A No. 2 Rabun County, with 4-star quarterback Gunner Stockton, the following week.
Latest Class 3A top 10
1. (1) Cedar Grove (1-0)
2. (2) Oconee County (2-0)
3. (4) Pierce County (1-1)
4. (3) Peach County (0-2)
5. (5) Westminster (1-1)
6. (6) Crisp County (0-1)
7. (7) Appling County (2-0)
8. (8) Sandy Creek (1-0)
9. (9) Thomson (2-0)
10. (10) Monroe Area (2-0)
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