Gatewood ended its regular season on a down note on Nov. 4, as Brentwood’s War Eagles doubled up on them 42-21 in Sandersville.
Still, head coach Jeff Ratliff is not ready to give up on his Gators; not with playoffs set to start Nov. 19, on the road against Augusta Prep Day—a team they beat in their second regular-season game this year.
“I’m still really proud of my guys no matter what,” Ratliff said. “We had a rough week last week. We dealt with a lot of things. Had a flu outbreak on Monday, had 17 of our 32 guys out, and still 15 out on Tuesday, so we weren’t able to practice at all on both days.
“We did practice Wednesday and Thursday, doing the best we could, but I don’t want to make excuses,” he added. “Brentwood has a very good football team and they beat us. They played well … but my kids gave me a great effort on Friday night and that’s what I’m looking for.”
After Brentwood’s opening drive of the game resulted in a touchdown, an interception and a fumble by Gatewood on its first two possessions essentially doomed its efforts. Brentwood took advantage both times to lead 21-0 after the first quarter.
The Gators finally got on the board in the second quarter after sophomore quarterback Ames Johnson threw a short backfield pass to senior Justin Jameson, who then ran 30-plus yards to make it 21-7 after kicker Jayden Daniel contributed the extra point.
Brentwood quickly countered, however, making it 28-7 with five minutes left in the half. Gatewood’s ensuing drive petered out early and led to a short punt that the War Eagles took advantage of to go ahead even further, scoring the extra point to go up 35-7 with just a few seconds left on the clock before the half-expired.
“This may be surprising, but I was still happy with our effort,” Ratliff said. “We did have a poor night tackling and I would tell you we had a poor night reading our keys. We blew a lot of coverages and a lot of assignments. That can’t continue.”
The teams traded touchdowns and extra points in the third quarter, with junior running back Evan Bennett getting the job done for the Gators with a short, seven-yard sprint to make it 42-14 heading into the final 12 minutes.
The final touchdown of the game came with about four minutes left, when Johnson connected with a 40-yard screen pass to senior wide receiver Dylan Sinclair, while Daniel added the point after to reach the 42-21 final.
“We had a rough week. But we’ve come through it and I think we weren’t as bad as the score looked because I thought we were able to run the ball pretty well, overall. We ran the option really well, but we’ve gotta hold onto the ball and finish off drives. We don’t have any chances to redo anymore,” Ratliff stated. “So, we’ve got to get all those things straight and moving into the playoffs. If we can establish a good running game with some timing and passing, I believe our offense would be fine. And now we just have to clean up some things on defense that pretty much played out like this all year. We’ve given up too many passing yards and when we have a chance to make some plays, we just gotta make ‘em.”
Gatewood beat Augusta Prep 37-26 in September, then went on to finish its 10-game regular season with a 4-6 record, including 0-2 in GIAA Region 2-AA play. Augusta Prep finished with a 5-5 record and was 1-1 in Region 4.
Johnson completed 6-of-15 passing attempts for 79 yards in that contest and rushed for 110 yards, while Bennett ran for 85 yards on 15 carries and scored 3 touchdowns. Jameson ran 161 yards on just 9 carries while contributing a pair of touchdowns.
“I feel like we’ve got a good matchup. They’re the four seed and we’re number five … and even though we have a head-to-head win over them, they’ve done some things down the stretch and they’re playing good ball,” Ratliff said. “But they haven’t changed a lot from week two, they’ve just gotten a lot better at what they do and hopefully we have, too, so I’m pretty sure we’re going to get a good football game.”