Behind a punishing run game, the Savannah Country Day Hornets damaged Liberty County’s playoff chances.
Barton Mixon ran for four touchdowns, and the Savannah Country Day Hornets rolled up 423 yards rushing in a 38-14 win over the Liberty County Panthers on Thursday night.
“They were pushing us around all night,” Panthers coach Tony Glazer said of the Hornets. “This is a game we expected to compete in. From the opening snap, they were more physical. They pushed us around, offense, defense and special teams. All we can do is look at the film and get better. That’s been our motto all year.”
With the loss, the Panthers slipped to 2-5 overall and 2-2 in Region 3-AAA. The Hornets, with their straight win, improved to 5-2 on the season and 3-1 in the region.
The Hornets jumped out to a 14-0 lead on their first two possessions, both ending in Mixon touchdown runs. His 12-yard run on a push sneak with 55 seconds left in the first half gave the Hornets a 21-0 cushion.
Liberty struck quickly on its opening possession of the second half. Carlos Singleton rolled to his right and hit Jeremiah Payne, who then ran back across the field and up the left sideline for a 69-yard touchdown.
After a Cash Ramirez field goal, the Panthers drew within 24-14 as Singleton scrambled to his left and shot down the Panthers sidelines for an 82-yard touchdown run with 2:27 remaining in the third quarter.
“We felt pretty good,” Glazer said. “We were moving the ball. We saw some stuff at halftime that we thought we could really do. We felt if we got the ball back we were going to score.”
Mixon and the Hornets answered, getting a key 24-yard completion on third down to Joshua Washington. Mixon’s 5-yard run with 10:52 to go made it 31-14.
Keith James added the final tally, a 29-yard run, with 5:26 remaining.
“You play a good football team, you have to make the plays,” Glazer said. “We missed a lot of tackles and they were finishing forward. It’s hard to win football games when the other team is more physical than you, and that’s what happened.”
Liberty County is off this week before hosting Long County, also 2-2, on October 20. Long County is off this week, too, as is the entire region.
Unbeaten Calvary Day leads the region, and Savannah Christian also has just one loss. Country Day, at one loss, already has an edge over both Liberty and Long, having beaten both.
“They’ll be preparing for us and we’ll be preparing for them,” Glazer said of the coming week.
While Calvary, Savannah Christian and Savannah Country Day appear to have the first three spots in hand, the race for the playoffs has not been settled, Glazer pointed out.
“There are no guarantees. Like last year, all that stuff went down at the end of the year,” he said.
