After dropping their first two games this season, the Gatewood Gators now have a 2-2 record after a soggy 16-13 win over Southland Academy (0-4) last Friday at home in Eatonton.
Halfway through the first quarter, light but steady rain began falling and remained until about five minutes were left on the game clock.
“It’s been dry so long I was joking about how our field could probably take an inch of rain tonight, and it’d be fine,” Gators head coach Jeff Ratliff said later. “But it held up great. The guys that keep it up, man, my hats off to them. They’ve done a great job, even though they haven’t had a lot of experience in wet conditions yet.”
Gatewood got on the board first when quarterback Ames Johnson connected with a 20-yard toss to fellow senior Jackson Hewatt. He made a nice, twisting catch under pressure before taking a couple of steps to put the Gators up 6-0 with 3:24 left in the first quarter.
The Raiders responded with a quarterback sneak capped by a diving touchdown with 3:09 left in the second quarter, followed by the extra point to take a 7-6 lead into halftime.
“I told my guys at halftime, ‘Man, we’ve got a good football game right here. I want you to relax and have fun,’” Ratliff recalled. “And then later, on the fourth-down play, on the timeout, I looked every one of them in the eye and said it again, ‘Have fun with it. This is what the game’s all about. We need a stop, and you can make it.’ And we came up with a stop. So, things like that, that’s a mark of a team finding its way and we need to keep doing that. We found a way to win tonight.”
Southland, out of Americus, scored again in the third quarter with 5:03 left but missed the extra point, extending its lead to 13-6.
Ames Johnson next worked his way to near the 50-yard line, then heaved a 35-yard bomb to junior receiver Ben Brannen, who caught it in full stride at the 21-yard line and scampered into the end zone for the touchdown. Kicker Connor Mitchem connected in the extra point, tying the game at 13-13 with 3:33 left in the quarter.
Hunter Johnson almost scored early in the fourth quarter but made it to the five-yard line before being tripped up. So, Mitchem returned to attempt a short field and sent it through the uprights, giving his team a 16-13 lead with 8:51 left.
Ratliff recognized it was far from a perfect game for his Gators but preferred to focus more on the result than the process.
“I thought it was two good teams slugging it back and forth, and we found a way to win,” he said. “I’m going to look at it like that.”
The coach pointed out Southland did a good job executing its scheme, and his guys missed some key blocks, but overall, he was pleased with the Gators’ effort and resolve.
“It (the Raiders’ plan) wasn’t anything that should have overwhelmed us, but it did,” he acknowledged. “But again, our guys were scrappy, stayed in there, and found a way.”
After a three-game homestand, Gatewood will go on the road this Friday, visiting Mount de Sales Academy in Macon. Despite being involved in coaching for 31 years, with 14 of those at Gatewood, Ratliff said that he’s never coached against the Cavaliers beyond a couple of preseason scrimmages.
“They’ve got some size, they’ve got some speed, and I think they’ve got a really good quarterback that we’re going to have to contain. But I’m looking forward to going down there and playing those guys,” Ratliff said. “Our game plan doesn’t change. We want to run the football; we want to run the option. If you’re going to give us a matchup in the passing game, we’re going to try to exploit it. We’ve got a really good receiver and a quarterback who can put it on the money,” he pointed out.
“And then we’ve got to be hardnosed on defense. We want to get stops; we want to get turnovers. That’s who we are. We may not be the biggest team but when you come out to see a Gatewood game, there’s going to be an actual game, not a blowout. You’re going to have two teams going at it. And hopefully, we’re running the ball, hitting a couple of big plays, and making some key stops on defense.”