Pack, Demons out to stop slides

Wayne Grandy

October 29, 2007 10:28 pm

— MOULTRIE — Colquitt County and Warner Robins, two of the perennial powers in Georgia high school football, find themselves this week in very strange, but similar, circumstances.
The two teams, which will meet at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium, face elimination from the Class AAAAA playoff picture and are staring at another rarity.
Both teams — which are an identical 2-6 overall and 1-3 in the region — are likely to finish the 2007 season with losing records.
Warner Robins, which has won 23 region championships, four state championships and a pair of mythical national championships, has not had a losing season since 1966.
The Demons went 1-9 that year under Joe Sumrall.
Two years later, Warner Robins was 9-1.
The Demons free fall this season was not expected, even though the team lost a number of key performers from last year’s team that went 9-5 after a trip to the Georgia Dome and the state semifinals.
In fact, over the last four seasons under coach Bryan Way, the Demons were 32-7-1.
Last Friday’s loss to Tift County was especially disappointing.
Warner Robins led 13-6 in the fourth quarter before Blue Devils quarterback Nick Prostko threw two touchdown passes in the final nine minutes to give Tift County a 21-13 victory.
The Demons got a pair of field goals from David Clark and a 69-yard touchdown pass from quarterback W.J. McCallister to Rashad Wynes late in the third quarter.
“It’s the same story every week,” Way told The Macon Telegraph after the game. “We cannot make a play on either side of the ball. When the time comes and we need to step up and make a play, on both offense and defense, we have not been able to do it.”
Colquitt County, which has not posted a losing record since 1983, also would like to reverse its recent fortunes.
After five games last year, the Packers were 5-0 and ranked No. 1 in Class AAAAA.
Colquitt has gone 3-10 since then.
One of those three victories was against Warner Robins last year at McConnell-Talbert Stadium.
Colquitt would like nothing better than to duplicate that effort on Friday in what will be the annual Senior Night game.
Packers coach Tim Cokely said Warner Robins reminds him of the Bainbridge team that the Packers played on Sept. 21, losing 23-22.
Amazingly, despite winning just two of eight games, the Packers have a shot at making the playoffs after missing out last year.
If the Packers can defeat Warner Robins and Tift County (5-3, 2-2), they will finish fourth in the region and earn a trip to play the No. 1 team from Region 3-AAAAA, expected to be Camden County, in the first round of the playoffs.
Tift County will travel to Martin Stadium on Friday to meet Lowndes, which would clinch the region championship with a victory. Should the Blue Devils fall, they will bring a 2-3 record to Moultrie.
Even if Tift County upsets Lowndes this Friday and is 3-2 when it plays host to Colquitt County on Nov. 9 in the regular-season finale, a Packers win will still mean a playoff date.
Since 1990, the Packers have missed the postseason just twice, including last year, when they won just two of their six region games.
Colquitt County will need to play better against Warner Robins than it did against the Vikings last Friday.
The Packers had just 103 yards rushing and 121 yards of total offense.
Colquitt did not hurt itself with penalties and its only turnover was on a fourth-down pass out of punt formation.
But the Packers never did establish a toe-hold on either line of scrimmage and snapped the ball just 19 times in the first half. They managed just five first downs in the game and were 0-10 on third-down opportunities.
Lowndes rushed the ball 41 times for 295 yards and threw for 40 more.
The Vikings Region 1-AAAAA Player of the Year candidate Greg Reid accounted 142 all-purpose yards, including 63 yards rushing, 28 yards receiving, 12 yards passing and 39 yards on a punt return.