Long County will hit the road to take on Windsor Forest at 7 p.m. Friday in Garden City stadium.
The Knights are 2-0, having downed Jenkins County 16-15 and Bryan County 34-15.
The Blue Tide will have to do a better job on the defensive front line and make more plays offensively in order to have success, according to coach J.T. Pollock.
The Tide are coming off a 39-14 loss to Jeff Davis.
Playing in Ludowici, the Yellow Jackets stung the Blue Tide’s defense all night, scoring on five of their eight possessions.
The home team’s offense also struggled turning the ball over three times (one fumble, one interception, and one blocked field goal attempt), punting three times, and turning the ball over on downs once.
Early on, Friday’s game looked like it might be a tight one after the Long County defense forced a turnover on a fumble, which was recovered by Dazon Mills at the Jeff Davis 40-yard line.
After two first downs, E.J. Crawford took the ball on a handoff and swept to the left for a 20-yard touchdown. Alex Maldonado’s point after attempt sailed left, and the score was 14-6 Yellow Jackets.
But with both the offense and defense struggling Jeff Davis scored two more times in the second quarter to go in at the break leading 26-6.
In the third quarter, it appeared that Long County might be able to get back into the game after the Blue Tide took their opening possession and drove to the Jeff Davis 16-yard line. After the drive stalled, Pollock decided to go for a 33-yard field goal. But on this night, nothing would go right for Long County.
Maldonado’s kick was blocked by Nyjai Gillis who then scooped the ball up and raced in for a Yellow Jacket score. After another late score by the visitors Jeff Davis led 39-6.
The Blue Tide would not give up. Taking over possession at their own 45, the offense finally began to find some momentum.
After big runs by Jarvis Dudley and Crawford, Long County faced a 4th and goal at the Jeff Davis two-yard line. Crawford took the rock and crashed across the goal for his second score of the night.
Christian Bass followed this up with a successful two-point conversion making the final score 39-14.
After the game, Pollock said his team came out slow but did play much better in the second half.
“In the second half, I think we grew up a bit tonight in our physicality. We’ve been trying to teach a certain mentality, a mentality of being hardnosed, having a gritty effort, and playing as hard as you can on every play, we did that in the second half,” he said.
Pollock praised Jeff Davis, saying that they played well and were well coached.
“They’re an excellent team, what they brought in tonight was not a shock to us, Coach Helton is a good coach and his whole staff did a great job,” Pollock said.