Richmond Hill High School

Wildcats Lose a Tough One

Richmond Hill High School at Thomson High School

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For one quarter Richmond Hill managed to walk a tight rope at the Brickyard in Thomson. They battled the heavily favored Bulldogs through the scoreless stanza, then they fell off the rope.

Thomson scored on the first play of the second quarter and the last play. In between they managed three more to open an insurmountable 35-0 score at the half. No one was real surprised by the Bulldogs athletic superiority, they took the state ranked Statesboro Blue Devils to the final play of the game last week before losing on a last second field goal. The real heartbreakers for the Wildcats though came on the final two touchdowns of the quarter.

Already down by 21 points Richmond Hill punter Sam Vernon was getting a workout. His fifth kick of the half had pinned the Bulldogs at the 20 yard line and with just over a minute to go it looked like the Wildcats would stop any further damage. A quick 30 yard run for a first down and a time out gave the Bulldogs time to talk it over.

The result was a 53 yard bomb from the normally run first offense that caught the Richmond Hill defense off guard and upped the score to 28-0. If that was the proverbial dagger in the Wildcats hopes for an upset - the proverbial twist of the knife would come next.

Richmond Hill would not give in. After the kick off and with just 39 seconds left, Matt Williams found tight end Raynard Mumford for a quick first down. He connected with Zach Denny out of the backfield on a long gain then finally found Tyler Mitchell at the one yard line and incredibly Richmond Hill found them selves first and goal with one second left in the half.

Even though the Bulldogs had keyed on the Wildcats leading rusher through out the half and held him in check, Zach Broome lined up at the quarterback position with the obvious intent of getting his team on the board. However for the second straight week a bad snap eluded Broome and unbelievably a Bulldog defender picked the ball up and went 98 yards the other way for the final score of the half.

Denny would score the lone touchdown for Richmond Hill in the third quarter and actually finished the game with a respectable 85 yards rushing. Williams was again impressive in his passing role connecting with five different receivers for 134 yards. Kevin Bodaford recorded 10 tackles from his line backing position and Josh Davis recovered a fumble in the first quarter to stop a bulldog scoring opportunity. So it was not all doom and gloom for the Wildcats and they will now try and regroup.

West Laurens, (3-2, 0-1), 34-0 losers to Baldwin last week will visit Wildcat Field Friday night game time 7:30 p.m.