Last week the Long County High School football team fell to Appling County 35-0 in Baxley.
In a game where nothing went right for the Blue Tide, both coaches and players couldn’t wait to begin practice on Monday to start preparing for their next contest. This Friday Long County is back at home taking on Pierce County. The Blue Tide have had several good games against the Bears, but still, in seven contests the Blackshear team has been able to come out on top every time.
Last year, Long County fell 49-0. With all of this past information, one might think that going into Friday’s game the Blue Tide have no chance, but according to both team’s records that might not be the case.
Pierce County is 2-3. They have lost to Bacon County (4-2), Brooks County (6-0), and Wayne County (5-1) by a combined score of 96-21. The two victories that the Bears have were against Beach High School (3-2) and Brantley County (0-5). Their offense has been ground oriented with junior tailback John Jones leading the way with a 6.1 yard average per rushing attempt and averaging 131 yards a game, according to MaxPreps.
Long County goes into the game still looking for their first win of the season. Of their six games they were outmatched against Appling County and Jeff Davis losing those two games by a combined score of 74-14. However in the Blue Tide’s other four games, each one of them went down to the wire with Long County having opportunities to win in the fourth quarters. In these four games the Blue Tide lost by an average score of 25-19.
According to MaxPreps through five games, Long County is being led on the offense by senior quarterback E.J. Crawford who leads the team in rushing with 559 yards, while rushing for 4 touchdowns and also throwing 4 touchdown passes. On the defensive side of the ball the Blue Tide is being led in tackles by junior defensive back Jaylen Bryant who has 59 tackles in five games.
Another incentive for Long County to pull off the upset this week, is because the game is Homecoming for the Blue Tide.
The game is in Ludowici with kickoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m.