Habersham Central celebrated Homecoming with an important victory on Friday night, knocking off Winder-Barrow, 35-21, and improving its region record to 2-0 ahead of a tough road battle.
The Raiders (4-2, 2-0 Region 8-AAAAA) took another step toward playing for a region championship as the season moves on. The loss for the Bulldoggs (3-4, 2-1) was their first in region play this season.
The win was the result of winning the turnover battle and “a pretty complete game offensively,” according to Head Coach Benji Harrison.
“If you want to accomplish the goals you want to accomplish – and that’s having the opportunity to play for a region championship, an opportunity to host [playoff] games – then we knew this one was one we had to win,” Harrison said. “We didn’t want to make it a must-win, but, for us to accomplish our goals, we needed to win. And that just makes the next one bigger.”
The next one will be against defending region champion Clarke Central in Athens next week.
Friday night was a proving ground for all facets of the game for the Raiders and each phase proved itself up to the task of doing what was necessary to win.
Habersham Central came out of the halftime break with a 25-14 lead and received the kickoff to start the second half.
Harrison put the ball in the hands of his senior running back Donnie Warren (40 carries, 253 yards, 2 TD) to eat the clock down and limit touches for Winder-Barrow.
The Raiders put the cap on a 15-play, 65-yard drive with a 17-yard fade to Jay Feltus in the right corner of the end zone.
The fade to Feltus (5 catches, 60 yards, 1 TD) was not the play call sent in by the Habersham Central coaching staff. It was recognition by junior quarterback Paris Wilbanks of a one-on-one man matchup between Feltus and a cornerback the coaches felt favored their receiver.
Wilbanks changed the play call at the line of scrimmage and delivered a perfect pass for Feltus to come down with the touchdown.
“We had inside zone called and he saw (Feltus) line up against a corner and we see it and we want to take advantage of it,” Harrison said. “We had not changed a play this week at practice, but he saw it and felt good about it.
“Our coaches were saying ‘He’s changing it’ and I said, ‘Let’s see what he’s changing it to first,’” he continued. “Worked out. It was a pretty good check.”
The ability to make that play and change the play at the line of scrimmage shows the confidence Wilbanks has in himself, his teammates and knowing the coaching staff trusts him to make the right call. As Harrison puts it, “He’s a pretty mature player.”
That score came with 4:28 remaining on the clock in the third quarter.
The decision to open the third quarter and eat as much time off the clock as possible was made in effort to keep standout running back Demetrius Dowdy on the sideline. The senior showed why just 51 seconds later.
Dowdy ripped off a 58-yard touchdown run around the left side on just the third play of the quarter for the visitors.
Dowdy, who rushed the ball 28 times for 319 yards against the Raiders a year ago, carried it 17 times for 203 yards and two scores Friday night.
“We wanted that clock to move because, if we were on the field, then number 3 was standing (on the sideline). Dowdy, he’s a good player,” Harrison said. “We knew we weren’t going to shut Dowdy out.”
Scoring closed in the game with 4:24 left in the contest as Camden Meads pushed the lead back to 14 points with a 31-yard field goal.
“We’re pretty good up front. And we’ve got a back, now. Our running back, he’s good,” Harrison said. “When (Warren) gets going and we can throw the football, I think we can kind of play the game we need to play.
“The drive coming out in the third quarter was almost eight minutes,” he continued. “To keep them off the field and for us to be able to run the football like we did tonight and then hit the passes when we needed to – and we made some big ones – I thought it was a pretty complete game offensively.”
Getting Started
The Raiders came out of the gate swinging. They kicked off to start the game and forced a punt on the Bulldoggs’ first drive.
Then Habersham Central went on a tear.
The Raiders marched down the field, covering 66 yards in 11 plays for Meads to deliver a 30-yard field goal.
On the ensuing drive for Winder-Barrow, senior defensive back Sawyer Burgess picked off a pass from Bulldoggs quarterback Westley Booth. The turnover gave the ball back to the hosts at the Winder-Barrow 35-yard line.
It took just two plays before Warren ripped off a 34-yard touchdown run to put the Raiders up 10-0. That stopped the clock at 3:48 left in the first quarter.
After forcing another 3-&-out, Habersham Central connected on two quick passes. The first was from Wilbanks (10-of-24, 162 yards, 2 TD, 2 INT) to Feltus for 16 yards. Wilbanks followed that up with a ball to senior Tylon Davis (3 catches, 78 yards) for 20 yards.
Then it was the Donnie Warren show.
Warren ran the ball five straight times, picking up seven yards, eight yards, six yards, three yards and then, ultimately, one yard for the score.
As is customary, the Raiders trotted Meads out for the extra point. Before he could knock it through the uprights and give his team the 17-0 lead, Winder-Barrow jumped offsides.
Harrison reconsidered and ran out his offense to try the two-point conversion.
With Wilbanks in, he clapped his hands looking for the snap of the ball. When the ball was never delivered, he started walking toward the sideline complaining about the lack of a snap. That set in motion a direct snap to Warren in a trick play, that ultimately saw the back push his way across the goal line for the successful two-point attempt and an 18-0 lead.
Harrison said the team has been practicing that trick play every day since the Stephens County game. With the penalty moving the ball to the 1-and-a-half-yard line and Winder-Barrow averaging 38 points per game, it set up the perfect time to put it in motion.
“We didn’t practice it to hold it. I mean, I felt like we were playing good and, with momentum, let’s get as many [points] as we can. You never know,” Harrison said. “The way we were playing and then it does something, getting a two-point conversion, just does something a little bit to drain them and try to put them away early.
“I just felt like our defense was playing good, so, if we don’t get it, eh, we’ll be alright.”
The Raiders were the beneficiaries of another turnover on the ensuing kickoff as Giovanni Tuggle had the ball knocked loose on the return and junior defensive back Parks York came up with the recovery.
Tuggle, a sophomore defensive back, ended his night with nine solo tackles and an interception. The youngster is a promising player in the eyes of college recruiters as he holds a five-star composite rating from 247Sports with offers from top programs like Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma, Penn State and Texas A&M, to name a few.
The fumble recovery put the ball at the Winder-Barrow 39-yard line, but the Raiders were unable to get anything out of the drive as they stalled out and had to punt.
Two plays later, Booth was picked off by York at the Habersham Central 44-yard line.
The Raiders were able to take that drive 56 yards over 10 plays. The final play on the drive was a 7-yard touchdown pass from Wilbanks to junior tight end JJ Rucker. With Meads’ extra point, the lead was now 25 for the hosts.
After jumping out to a 25-0 lead in the first 21 minutes, 18 seconds of play, the Raiders watched on as momentum swung in favor of the Bulldoggs.
Winder-Barrow leaned, as they so often do, on Dowdy to get them to the end zone. He carried a first down play 10 yards to set up a second first down play. He carried that one 64 yards to the Habersham Central 6-yard line.
For good measure, he finished up that six yards with a run bounced around the right side and into the end zone.
Warren returned the kickoff 28 yards to the Raiders’ 41-yard line, but an illegal block brought the ball back to the 31. An illegal motion penalty on the first play would back it up five more yards to the 26.
On 2nd-&-15, a pass off the hands of the Habersham Central receiver found its way into the hands of a Winder-Barrow linebacker, who took the ball back to the end zone for a pick-6.
The Bulldoggs went from down 25 to down 11 in a matter of 39 seconds.
Habersham Central had the chance to swing momentum back in its own direction with two good attempts at 28-yard passes into the end zone, but the receivers weren’t able to come down with the ball in either try.
Starting Blocks
Three weeks removed from a game that started about as bad as one could, going down 14-0 in the first four minutes against Cherokee Bluff, the Raiders were rewarded handsomely from getting off to a great start against Winder-Barrow.
It’s been a throughline in games where the Raiders have been impressive. Stephens County, White County, Loganville and, now, Winder-Barrow are all games where Habersham Central has gotten off to big starts.
The other thing in common between those four games – they’re the four games in the win column. Flowery Branch and Cherokee Bluff, the two games in the loss column, saw the Raiders down 21-7 and 28-7 at halftime.
“I think it just shows how you need to start. Starting is so important,” Harrison said. “You know, you can get behind the eight ball really quick if you’re not fully focused and engaged in the beginning. You better come out to play.”
The head coach said he could sense how his players would come out on Friday night by the energy they had before warmups.
“They were ready to play. They were going nuts before the pregame,” Harrison said. “They were dancing around, they were loose, they were excited. It wasn’t anything silly. They were locked in. They were ready to go. It didn’t take much of a speech from me to get them ready.”
After halftime, the players came back down to the field jumping around and yelling.
Harrison said players like York and Sutton Porter were getting on teammates who were sitting down at halftime. They didn’t want to lose the energy the team came off the field with and give up any momentum early in the second half.
Avoiding Distraction
Speaking of momentum, coming off a 41-0 win over Loganville and carrying that momentum into the next game is beneficial. Carrying that momentum across a bye week and trying to continue it for a second week to get to kickoff on Friday night can be tough.
Add in the festivities – spirit week, pep rally and dance – that come along with celebrating Homecoming and there’s just no shortage of potential distractions for high schoolers that can take their minds away from the game.
Harrison said this group has a few guys at a few positions that made sure the team kept its focus throughout the bye week and into the game.
“I was telling somebody earlier, I think we have a really mature football team. I think they understand what’s required,” Harrison said. “I think it comes down to [the fact that] they want to win. I remind them all the time that if you want to win, you’ve got to do what winners do and I think they did. I think they did a good job of keeping the focus during the off week and I think they did a good job of not worrying about homecoming.”
The head coach said he jokingly threatened the players they would be practicing Saturday night, during the dance, if they lost the game Friday.
“You’re supposed to win homecoming games,” he said. “We didn’t have a little team we were playing. It was a big game, which made it that much more exciting for the fans and everybody.”
One For the Books
Senior running back Donnie Warren had a monster game.
His 40 rushing attempts on the night set a school record for single-game carries. Finishing the game with 253 yards and a pair of scores is a great night any time. Averaging 6.3 yards per carry with that number of attempts resembles video game stats.
He’s rushed for 160 yards or more three times this season – getting 160 against Flowery Branch and 193 against Stephens County. He also crossed the century mark with 111 yards against White County.
“Donnie plays like he’s 225 pounds. He’s got really good balance and he’s just hard to tackle,” Harrison said. “He’s not an overly big guy, but he’s rocked up, he’s put together. He works his tail off in the weight room. I think it was as good of a game as I’ve seen out of a running back in a long time.”
Looking Ahead
This coming Friday, the Raiders will head to Athens to face off against Clarke Central. It’ll be the first road test in region play for Habersham Central.
The Raiders have split road games so far this season, winning against White County and losing to Cherokee Bluff in a weather-shortened affair.
Harrison said he doesn’t know too much about Clarke Central, at least as of Friday night. Other teams’ coaches have said they’re down from a year ago and their 2-4 record would suggest as much.
The Gladiators picked up a 38-0 win over Apalachee on Friday, which puts them at 1-1 on the season in region play. Their loss came in a 64-14 contest against Jackson County at home.
Despite the record, the Raiders will still have respect for Clarke Central as the defending region champs and Billy Henderson Stadium has always been a tough place to play.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve played there, probably since my Flowery Branch days. It’s a tough place,” Harrison said. “But that’s part of it. Let’s go play.”
As the season is shaking out so far, beating Winder-Barrow Friday could prove the difference of being anywhere between a region champion and third place in the final standings. At the very least, it likely could be the game that’s looked back on as deciding whether the Raiders go on the road or host a playoff game in the first round.
Winder-Barrow hosting Jackson County on Oct. 17 and Habersham Central going to Jackson County on Oct. 31 to end the season will have lots of eyes on the results. If things continue as they have so far, that Halloween matchup could be a de facto region championship game.
But Harrison doesn’t want to entertain that conversation just yet.
“I know you’re going to say it’s the ‘coach answer,’ but it’s still early,” he said. “I mean, we’ve still got four region games to play.”
The Raiders and Gladiators will kick off at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Athens.
