It took the Whitewater football team all of 13 seconds to set the tone for Saturday’s 27-14 win over Northgate.
That’s all the time required for Corey Richardson to take the opening kickoff, hit the edge and run away with a 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. It was quite a way for the Wildcats to open the third annual Fayette-Coweta Challenge at Sandy Creek High School.
“I don’t know if this is the right way to say it, but it demoralizes the other team,” Whitewater coach Chad Frazier said. “You’re already up seven and it got our kids excited and it sparked an energy that I thought we needed because I thought we were flat during warmups.”
Whitewater has high expectations after going 11-2 last season, even though it lost 22 seniors. The Wildcats scored all the points it needed in the first quarter and was able to push back when Northgate tried to make a second-half comeback.
The kickoff return was only the beginning of the good things to happen for Whitewater in the first quarter. After forcing a punt, Whitewater scored on Braxton Mueller’s 3-yard run and added another score when Miami commit Popo Aguirre intercepted a pass that set up a five-play drive capped by Ty Ellington’s 23-yard scoring pass to Terrell White Jr.
“Whatever happened, I’d like to patent that and have it every week,” Frazier said.
Whitewater added a 7-yard touchdown run by Xavier Clay-Turner on its first possession of the second half to go ahead 27-0.
But Northgate change quarterbacks and Collin Meehan and running back Evan Garrett got the offensive rolling. The Vikings scored on an 11-play drive on Meehan’s 1-yard keeper, then forced a turnover when Whitewater quarterback Ellington and Luke Latham recovered.
Northgate needed four plays to score from 27 yards out, with Garrett running it in from the 13 to make it 27-14 with 9:34 remaining.
The Vikings forced a three-and-out and Northgate pushed the ball to the 15 before turning over on downs and sealing the Whitewater victory.
“We’ve got to do a better job avoiding that lull in the middle of the game but we’ll figure it out,” Frazier said.
Whitewater’s Clay-Turner led the team with 71 yards rushing and Logan Griffith added 51 for the Wildcats, who ran for 186 yards. Garrett ran 24 times for a game-high 138 yards and caught a 43-yard pass for Northgate.
Credit: Stan Awtrey
Credit: Stan Awtrey
Sandy Creek 38, Newnan 27
Geimere Latimer ran for two touchdowns and threw for two touchdowns to lead Sandy Creek to a 38-27 win over Newnan
“We kept at it, kept at it, kept at,” said Sandy Creek coach Brett Garvin. “We got a little frustrated and they had a good game plan. Second half they came in and threw a lot of things at us we had never seen.”
Sandy Creek opened the scoring when Latimer scored on a 27-yard run and Newnan tied on a 12-yard touchdown pass to Justyn Reid
Sandy Creek went up by two scores on a 68-yard run by Cameron Watts, then again on a blocked punt that Jakob Gude recovered and returned for a touchdown and a 21-7 lead.
Newnan got back in the game with a 41-yard field goal by Ethan Devers and 19-yard run by Antevius Berry. But Sandy Creek scored at the horn on a Hail Mary throw to Dalen Penson, but a missed extra point left the Patriots with a 26-17 lead at the half.
Newnan cut the lead to 26-20 on a 26-yard field goal by Devers and forced the Patriots to go three-and-tout. But the Cougars threw the ball away, with James Paige being intercepted by Travis Franklin, which set up Latimer’s 1-yard touchdown run with 2:05 left.
The Patriots kept making plays to turn aside any Newnan comeback. They stopped the Cougars on fourth-and-1 with 49 seconds left in the third quarter and again on a fourth-and-long midway in the final quarter, a stop that set up the Sandy Creek’s final touchdown, a 4-yard pass to Watts.
“We’ve got a tough little fast, gritty defense and they can run,” Garvin said. “That helps a lot. You can overcome a lot of mistakes.”
Credit: Stan Awtrey
Credit: Stan Awtrey
Starr’s Mill 27, East Coweta 17
There was no panic in the eyes of the Starr’s Mill players when they saw a 12-point lead vanish just before halftime.
“We had those two turnovers in the second half and we’re about to go up 19-0 and we’re feeling really good,” Phillips said. “You know, early in the season you expect little mental mistakes and fundamental breakdowns. But we’ve played in a lot of big games here over the last 24 years.”
That explains the calm shown by the Panthers, who didn’t deviate from their option attack and bounced back with a dominant second half to defeat East Coweta 27-17 in the finale of the Fayette Coweta Kickoff Classic.
Starr’s Mill’s offense was running at high efficiency for most of the first half. The Panthers got a 1-yard touchdown from from Greigh Joseph after Will Clem came up with an interception. Then Noah Scott intercepted a pass and the Panthers drove 11 plays and Joseph scored from the 1 for a 12-0 lead.
Starr’s Mill was on the move again and reached the 38, only to have Joseph lose a fumble. That seemed to turn the momentum with 3:31 remaining in the half. East Coweta struck with a 23-yard touchdown pass from Christian Langford to Kaleb Harris.
Starr’s Mill lost another fumble with 19 seconds left and East Coweta capitalized with a 20-yard touchdown from Langford to Brady Tillman as time expired, giving the Indians a 14-12 lead.
After receiving the second-half kickoff, Starr’s Mill gambled on fourth-and-1 at their own 29 and came up short. But the Panthers came up big on defense and limited East Coweta to a 38-yard Brock Beldon field goal to take a 17-12 lead.
The rest of the game belonged to Starr’s Mill. The Panthers took the lead with 57 seconds left in the third quarter after scoring on a 13-yard pass from Logan Imagawa to Josh Phifer. Imagawa threw a two-point conversion pass to Dorsey Benefield to give Starr’s Mill a 20-17 lead.
The Starr’s Mill defense got a sack from Jeremiah Stewart to force a punt and the Panthers scored again, with Greigh moving the chains with a 39-yard run. Dorsey Benefield scored from the 3 to up the lead to 27-17.
Starr’s Mill then came up with two more interceptions, one from Ryan Story and another in the final minute from William Yarbrough.
The Panthers were led offensively by Greigh, who rushed for 138 yards and Inagawa, who ran for 55 and completed all three of his pass attempts for 74 yards.
More than 4,000 people attended the triple-header on Saturday. The series will continue next, most likely at Newnan High School when it completes the current stadium renovations.
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