Bryan County High School

Bryan County falls prey to Tigers

Bryan County High School at Claxton High School

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The Bryan County Redskins invaded nearby territory last Friday night as they took a short trip up to Evans County to take on the Claxton Tigers in a Region 3A contest. The Redskins fell prey to the Tigers in a 34-8 loss at Claxton stadium.

The Redskins started out on the wrong foot when Thurman Gaines dropped the ball on the opening kick and the Tigers recovered at the Bryan County 48-yard line.

On the first offensive play of the game for the Tigers, the Redskins jumped offsides. The second play saw Bryan County offsides again and Claxton soon found themselves at the Redskin 20-yard line. Claxton eventually faced a fourth down and seven that they converted into a first down and, on the next play, Claxton’s J’Malcolm Morgan pranced in from nine yards out for the first score of the game. The 2-point conversion pass was good and the Tigers were quickly up 8-0 with 8:50 still on the first quarter clock.

The running back tandem of Morgan (31 carries for 246 yards) and Arice Brown (20 carries for 124 yards) ran up and down the field and slashed through the Redskin defense mostly at will behind the dominating offensive line of Claxton.

"We were just outmanned on the offensive and defensive side of the ball," Redskin Coach Ron Lewis said. "We put some of our bigger players in that are not starters to try and fill some running gaps, but they just outmanned us with their size and speed of their big line. They whipped us at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and that’s the bottom line."

The Bryan County offense, which gained only 90 yards on the ground, never could penetrate the Claxton defense to cause any scare. The Tigers soon ran their way to another score with an 18 play, 90-yard drive in the second quarter to move the score to 14-0 behind Morgan, who scored from six yards out for his second TD of the game.

Bryan County took the ensuing kickoff at the 50-yard line and continued to try and get some offense going. With the ball at the Claxton 44-yard line, Redskin quarterback Winston Johnson slipped around right end and worked his way down the sideline for a 44-yard touchdown. The Redskins seemed to be back in the game, but a holding penalty against Bryan County negated the score as the Redskin woes continued.

Bryan County eventually punted with 2:54 left in the half and Claxton marched from their own 41-yard line to the Redskin 9-yard line. The Redskins held the Tigers out of the endzone and the teams went into halftime with Claxton leading 14-0.

Claxton received the second half kickoff and started their offensive possession at their own 24-yard line. The Tigers wasted no time in getting their running game cranked back up as they marched down to the Redskin 32-yard line in just four plays. Brown scored to push the score to 20-0 as the two-point run was no good.

Bryan County was finally able to answer back on the very next possession when Ivey Mutcherson darted 54 yards on the fourth play of the drive for the first and only Redskin score of the game. Willie Deloach ran and jumped his way into the endzone for the 2-point conversion to make it 20-8 with 8:08 left in the third quarter. That would be the only scoring spark that the Redskins would see as the Tigers continued to dominate the game on the ground and added two more touchdowns in the fourth quarter. The clock eventually wound down as Bryan County fell prey 34-8.

Claxton pounded out 26 first downs and produced 409 yards of total offense with 389 of those yards on the ground. Bryan County had two first downs with only 97 yards of total offense. The Redskin defense had its hands full all night and was led in tackles by Deandre Walker (10), Willie Deloach (9), and Joseph Jenkins (8). Bryan County will be back at home on Friday, Oct. 24 as the play host to Portal (0-7, 0-3 Region 3-A). This will be Homecoming for the Redskins.