Propst: No looking ahead

September 06, 2008 06:35 pm

— MOULTRIE — Moments after he led his team’s short but well-deserved celebration after its 10-7 victory over Thomasville on Friday at Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium, Colquitt County Coach Rush Propst urged caution.
The Packers, now 2-0, have Wayne County, another non-Region 1-AAAAA opponent, next Friday before league play starts on Sept. 19 on the road against defending Class AAAAA state champion Lowndes.
“I’m not ready to tell anybody we can win in this region yet,” Propst said after the game. “If we start to look ahead to Lowndes, will lose to Lowndes and we’ll lose to Wayne County and we’ll be 2-2.
“We need to concentrate on Wayne County and Wayne County only.”
Wayne County, which plays in Region 2-AAAA, is 0-2 after losing its opener 12-0 to Appling County and falling on Friday to Bradwell Institute 28-13.
The Packers played solid and opportunistic defense in dealing Thomasville its third straight excruciating loss.
Although the Bulldogs rushed for 215 yards on 50 carries — they did not complete a pass in five attempts — the Packers forced seven punts and allowed just the one touchdown.
And Thomasville’s lone score was as controversial as the Packers’ first.
Jeffrey Dyson bolted 28 yards for the fourth-quarter touchdown on a play in which he appeared to have been stopped at the Packers 20.
The Packers first score came on a 35-yard field goal by Tyler Dismuke on the final play of the first half and followed a play that had the coaching staffs of both teams barking at the officials.
On a third-and-4 from Bulldogs 21 with 19.4 seconds left in the half, Packers quarterback John Michael Harrison completed a quick pass to the sideline to Blake Stamps, who was unable to get out of bounds to stop the clock.
The officials did not indicate a first down or stop the clock and returned the ball to the hash mark, where Harrison spiked the ball on what appeared to be fourth down with 2.9 seconds left on the clock.
The Packers sideline complained that the completion to Stamps had been enough for a first down.
The Bulldogs argued that the ball should be theirs following the spiked ball on fourth down.
The officials huddled, spoke to both coaches, then waved off Harrison’s spike and said the pass to Stamps had, in fact, been enough for the first down.
The clock was not reset, but Dismuke appeared unfazed by stoppage of play and calmly nailed his first varsity field goal as the horn sounded to give the Packers a 3-0 lead.
Thomasville had two golden scoring opportunities in each half.
But as they had in the previous week’s 13-7 loss to Thomas County Central in which they suffered three fumbles and an interception, the Bulldogs turned the ball over at inopportune times.
In the second quarter, a 16-play drive went for naught when quarterback Charles Hayes fumbled on a first-and-10 at the Packers 10.
Colquitt County linebacker Justin Jones recovered at the 20.
The second turnover was even more costly. Thomasville drove from its 35 to the Packers 14 in the fourth quarter, eating up more than four minutes, only to fumble again at the Colquitt County 13.
Jarrett Sutton fell on the ball for the Packers.
“I have never seen anything like I’ve seen the last three games that we played in my life,” Thomasville coach Richie Marsh told The Thomasville Times-Enterprise. “And I’ve been around it for 18 years brother.”
Colquitt County rolled up 303 yards of offense, including 286 coming on Harrison completions.
The senior quarterback hit on 20-of-42 passes, including a 20-yard strike to Quin Roberson for the Packers only touchdown with 55 seconds left in the third quarter to put his team up 10-0.
Once again, Harrison spread the ball around, with nine Packers making receptions.
Roberson had five for 82 yards, Travon Littleton had five for 52 yards and Eric Key had four for 81 yards. Roberson had catches of 11 and 13 yards on the touchdown drive and came up with a dandy of a grab of a Harrison pass on a first-and-10 from the Thomasville 1 with 7:09 left in the game.
Although the Packers punted four plays later, the pitch-and-catch enable Colquitt County to escape a possible field position disaster.
PACKERS NOTES: In the first two games of his senior season, Harrison has completed 40-of-73 passes for 483 yards and seven touchdowns and no interceptions.
Last year in 10 games, he completed 48-of-136 passes for 577 yards and one touchdown with six interceptions.
Twelve Packers have catches in the two games.
The Packers are plus-3 in the turnover department after two games, recovering four fumbles while losing one themselves.