After riding the highs of knocking off rival Stephens County a week ago, Habersham Central fell short of a second-half comeback against Flowery Branch as the Falcons left Mt. Airy with a 31-28 win Friday night.
The Raiders (1-1) left themselves needing a late touchdown and hoping for an onside kick recovery to have a chance to complete the come-from-behind effort. The door was slammed on that hope as Flowery Branch (1-1) junior Tyler Robinson fell on the attempted special teams stratagem.
After a 1-yard touchdown run from Falcons quarterback Brett Strum (17 rushes, 134 yards, 1 TD) put Habersham Central down 28-14 less than a minute into the fourth quarter, the Raiders pulled back within a touchdown with 5:04 remaining in the contest. Donnie Warren (29 rushes, 174 yards, 1 TD) notched his only score on the night with a 4-yard scamper.
With all the momentum seemingly against them, Flowery Branch took the ensuing kickoff 90 yards from its own 5-yard line to the Habersham Central 5-yard line.
The Raider defense held strong and forced a 23-yard field goal, which senior Brooks Recinella connected on to extend the Flowery Branch lead to 31-21.
Despite the effort from the defense, the Habersham Central offense was unable to get anything going on the ensuing drive.
The Raiders took just 19 seconds off the clock, completing one pass from junior quarterback Paris Wilbanks (16-of-26, 232 yards, 2 TD) to senior wide receiver Tylon Davis before missing on three consecutive pass attempts to turn the ball over on downs.
Wilbanks (13 rushes, 57 yards, 2 TD) would notch the final score for Habersham Central on a 1-yard touchdown run with 33 seconds left in the contest, leading to the attempted onside kick.
Davis finished the contest with seven catches on seven targets for 92 yards in the contest, including a big 39-yard catch to set up Wilbanks’ 1-yard rush two plays later. It was a complete turnaround from a 2-catch performance the previous week with a couple of costly drops late in the game against Stephens County, which led to the senior being challenged by his head coach.
“Tylon responded. That shows he’s growing up,” Head Coach Benji Harrison said. “He wants to do well. He wants the ball in his hands. I thought he wanted it tonight and, because he was making plays, we kept trying to find him. Hats off to him. It was a great response.”
The game was a tale of two halves for the Raiders as they went into the halftime break down 21-7.
The home team came out flat to start the game. The emotion that was so evident and palpable from the team and fan base a week ago was all but nonexistent Friday night.
Harrison said his speech at the intermission was “emotional.”
“It was challenging them and then we tried to make some adjustments,” he said. “It was a thing where, basically, I didn’t want to say ‘I told you so,’ but I told them (earlier in the week) ‘if we don’t practice well, we’re not going to play well.’
“We played exactly in the first half how we practiced – flat, no emotion, going through the motions,” Harrison continued. “We just didn’t have a good week of practice and it showed.”
Games following a big, emotional victory – in any sport, at any level – are often referred to as a “trap game,” especially if it has the appearance or expectation of being winnable. This game definitely fit the criteria.
“Any time you come off a win like we did last week, so much goes into that Stephens game, it’s hard. You see that at every level,” Harrison said. “You throw in the fact that we’re dealing with teenage kids, they’re emotional guys too and they’re kind of up and down. We’ve got to figure out how to push their buttons better.”
The Falcons leapt out to an early lead, taking less than three minutes to score on the first possession of the game with senior running back Griffin Harper (24 rushes, 181 yards, 3 TD) punching in a 1-yard run.
The short jaunt would be the first of two 1-yard touchdowns for Harper in the opening quarter as he did just the same with 1:31 left on the clock.
The Raiders seemed to settle into the game after marching down the field and capping their first scoring drive with a 26-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Paris Wilbanks to fellow junior wide receiver KJ Murray.
That score for Habersham Central came with 8:42 showing on the clock in the second period.
Then, 29 seconds later, Harper continued stacking stats on the night as he ripped off a 64-yard sprint to the end zone to put the Falcons back up by two scores, 21-7.
The two teams traded punts before the Raiders were stopped on a 4th-and-1 at the Flowery Branch 24-yard line with 1:04 before halftime. Habersham Central had been moving the ball down the field well on the drive, but stalled after a penalty backed them up out of the red zone.
The Falcons snapped the ball twice, running the ball to kill the clock and take their lead into the break.
Straight out of the locker room, the difference in the first and second half was noticeable.
Habersham Central received the kickoff to start the third quarter and, 3 minutes, 22 seconds later, Wilbanks found the end zone with a 2-yard run.
The ensuing drive for the Falcons stalled as the Raider defense showed up to swing every ounce of momentum in the stadium to the home team.
Flowery Branch was forced to punt the ball back to Habersham Central, which was down just one score. But momentum took a hefty swing back on the pendulum as the punt was mishandled and recovered by the visitors on the Raider 37-yard line.
Again, the defense for Habersham Central stood strong and was the recipient of good fortune as a fumble on a fake exchange between quarterback and running back knocked the ball into the diving hands of junior Sutton Porter.
Porter has found himself in the right place at the right time four times so far this season. He scooped the ball off the turf twice in the scrimmage game at Oconee County – once for a touchdown – and now twice in the regular season after picking up a fumble recovery against Stephens County as well.
“Sutton just finds a way to be around the ball. Sutton is smart and Sutton understands what his role is in our defense,” Harrison said. “He understands where he’s supposed to be, where his fits are. That spot where he plays – at our bandit – he has to do that. He’s integral in our run game and where he fits in that and he also has to be good in coverage.”
Despite the gift from Flowery Branch, the Raider offense was unable to get anything going and they were forced to punt from inside their own 20-yard line with 3:27 remaining in the third quarter.
The ensuing possession for the Falcons ended up with Strum scoring that short run at the start of the final quarter.
Harrison alluded to a positive in his team as he spoke about the fight they showed in the second half, which is that they hadn’t done as many teams could have – shown defeat on their faces at halftime.
“I thought they responded. They didn’t have that look at halftime,” Harrison said. “I think they understood we still had a chance. We dug ourselves a hole, but we played as bad as we could play (in the first half).
“I will give them credit, they responded in the second half,” he continued. “But, obviously, it wasn’t enough.”
While losing games is never the goal, there’s plenty that can be learned in losses. Harrison hopes his team takes this loss, sees how the tone of the weeks’ practices made its way into the game and it fuels their fire for a week of good practices ahead of White County on the road next week.
“Our kids ought to be excited. They ought to be mad. They ought to be embarrassed,” Harrison said. “I’m not saying ‘embarrassed’ because we got beat by a bad team. We didn’t. I told them Flowery Branch is a good team. Just embarrassed after last week, how we played, to come out and play the way we did tonight is just disappointing.
“I told them, this game will build you up and it’ll tear you down,” he continued. “Last week, everybody at school told you ‘good job.’ You won’t be hearing that this week.”
White County (0-1) had an open week Friday night after going to Tiger and falling 42-6 to Rabun County in Week 1.
***Stats provided by WCON***
