It was a tale of two halves on a foggy Friday night in Eatonton last week when Gatewood roared back from a 17-point deficit at halftime to win 34-23 over the visiting Trinity Christian Crusaders out of Dublin.
The victory also represented head coach Jeff Ratliff's 100th career win, all coming since 2013, when he took over the Gatewood football program.
Significantly, Gatewood has reached the playoffs every season of Ratliff’s tenure leading the team, and perhaps more impressively, the Gators have advanced to the second round in each of the past nine seasons.
The streak appeared in jeopardy, though, as the Crusaders took the play to the Gators throughout the opening half, leading 10-0 after the first quarter and 23-0 before the Gators finally broke through with a field goal by freshman kicker Connor Mitchem, who added another late in the half.
“We have a little saying that I got from my coach when I played, and when I coached with him at Tatnall, he’d always tell us on Thursday afternoon, whether you go up big or down big, keep playing the game,” Ratliff answered when asked how he rallied his team. "Well, now I repeat that to my kids every Thursday before we step off the field, and why? Because it’s a four-quarter game, and you must keep playing it. Because you never know what will happen. And just as good as they had the momentum in the first half, we took it back in the second half, and yeah, we made it pay off.”
Gatewood looked like a different team as the second half began, and it scored its first touchdown in less than five minutes. Hunter Johnson ended a 35-yard dash down the right side with a spectacular dive to barely inbound across the goal line.
An equally impressive score followed less than three minutes after the Gators took a penalty deep in Gatewood territory.
“I asked Coach Ringer in the booth, he’s my offensive coordinator, what do you like? He gave me the call, and we call it 85 Snake, but then we get a penalty,” Ratliff said. “So, I asked him, you still like the call? And he said, yes. So I said, good, because we’re five yards further back, and it’s fourth and forever. That was a big moment.”
Despite the setback, Ratliff and Ringer opted to try again with the long bomb, and it paid off as quarterback Ames Johnson heaved the ball 45 yards to fellow senior Hunter Johnson again, who ran unencumbered the last 45 yards to score once more and make it 23-20 with 2:28 left in the third quarter.
Just 79 seconds into the final quarter, Hunter Johnson struck again with another long run down the right sideline. He scored his third-straight touchdown to finally put Gatewood on top 26-20 before Mitchem added the extra point.
The final touch came on a quarterback keep, with Ames Johnson scampering just inside the left corner marker to score and Mitchem making it 34-23 with less than two minutes to play.
Still, Ratliff singled out his defense for getting the win.
“The O-line, I thought, played well all night, even in the first half. We thought we moved the ball okay, but we missed a chance to score and didn’t have the ball a lot. We had a turnover, but we should have scored on the turnover off the kickoff. That was a missed opportunity,” he pointed out. “But the defense, there’s always a point in the game when things may change, right? And when they’re going to go up by four touchdowns, instead, they have to kick a field goal … that was a big moment in the game, not letting them into the end zone.”
The win sent the Gators to the semi-finals of the GIAA-AA playoffs, which will be played this Friday night against the Southwest Georgia Academy Warriors at Damascus in southwest Georgia.
Trinity Christian was one of only two common opponents for Gatewood and SGA this season, with the Gators splitting results and SGA defeating the Crusaders 40-5 in mid-October.
Both semi-finalists also played Southland Academy, with the Gators winning 16-13 in September and Southwest Georgia beating Southland 32-12 late last month in its final regular season game.