By Adam Carrington [email protected]
MARIETTA — After doing all its scoring in the fourth quarter, McEachern stopped a 2-point conversion and an onside kick in the waning seconds to secure a 14-12 win over Marietta on Friday at Northcutt Stadium.
It marked the Indians’ 11th win in the series over the last 12 years.
“It was a great win and a great feeling just to compete with my team and enjoy the moment,” said McEachern receiver Decari Collins, who had nine catches for 93 yards. “We had a good time with it.”
Marietta’s offense had struggled throughout the game with the exception of its opening drive, but the final drive of the game was a different story.
Fourth-ranked Marietta (5-2, 1-1) marched down the field in less than 2 minutes after second-ranked McEachern (7-0, 2-0) had scored on Carlos Del Rio-Wilson’s 1-yard run to extend the lead to 14-6.
A 26-yard pass from Harrison Bailey to Taji Johnson, followed by a 13-yard strike to Ricky White, set up a 6-yard touchdown run by Bailey with less than a minute left.
With Marietta needing a 2-point conversion to send the game into overtime, Bailey felt pressure in the pocket, went to Arik Gilbert in a crowded end zone, and McEachern’s defenders prevented Gilbert from catching it.
Marietta then had another shot when it appeared that Gilbert had recovered an onside kick attempt, but the officials ruled that the ball did not go the full 10 yards.
McEachern moved the ball well and ended up with 24 first downs, but it was held scoreless in the first three quarters.
The Indians threatened early in the second quarter when they got to the Marietta 28-yard line, but Del Rio-Wilson was stopped by Carlos Cervantes for no gain on fourth down. McEachern got to the Marietta 15 on its next drive before missing a 32-yard field goal attempt, and once the second half began, Peter Warrick Jr. intercepted Del Rio-Wilson on the Marietta 17.
“I was a little bit disappointed in the first half that we couldn’t knock it in,” McEachern coach Franklin Stephens said. “Then, the second half, we’re moving it down field, doing what we want and there’s a turnover. Let’s not get upset, let’s not flinch, let’s focus and try to get a stop.”
Late in the third quarter, McEachern embarked on its first scoring drive, staring on its own 20. A 29-yard pass from Del Rio-Wilson to Collins put McEachern on the Marietta 13, and the Indians eventually made it to the 5 before an illegal procedure pushed them back 5 yards.
Another throw to Collins put McEachern on the 1 before Del Rio-Wilson ran it in.
Marietta made its opening drive look easy. The Blue Devils needed just 31 seconds to find the end zone when Bailey hit White for a 65-yard gain before Kimani Vidal scored on a 5-yard run.
Bailey, who came in averaging 303 passing yards per game, was held to 204 yards and no touchdowns, while also getting sacked four times. Like McEachern, the Blue Devils often crossed midfield only to see their drives stall.
Del Rio-Wilson accounted for both of McEachern’s touchdowns and threw for 156 yards while rushing for an additional 64.
Marietta will travel to North Cobb next week looking for a rebound win, while McEachern will have its second bye of the season.
Marshall White MDJ Sports Writer
POWDER SPRINGS — McEachern outlasted Hillgrove for a 19-14 win Friday night, following a controversial final play at the Indians’ goal line as time expired.
Hillgrove quarterback Matthew McCravy was chased from the pocket and ran for the corner of the end zone. He dove for the pylon and appeared to score a touchdown that would have won the game for the Hawks.
Instead, the officials huddled and called an end to the game, ruling McCravy did not score. It was not clear if McCravy had been ruled down before the goal line, or if he had fumbled through the end zone, but a replay appeared to show that he had broken the goal line and hit the pylon with the ball before losing possession.
Instead, top-ranked McEachern came out with the narrow victory, evening the Powder Springs rivalry series at five games apiece.
“This series, we’ve had all kinds of spectacular things,” Hillgrove coach Phil Ironside said. “That’s a tough way to win or lose. It’s awesome for (McEachern), but somebody’s always on the other side. I said (to the team), we’ve got to handle this adversity, show class through it, and that’s the best I’ve got for them. We’re hurting — I get it — but you show more in adversity than you can show in a victory a lot of times.”
Both coaches said they never received an explanation of the call.
“I have no idea what it was,” McEachern coach Franklin Stephens said. “I was waiting to see what the referee was going to signal. Once the football went up in the air, I knew the game was over.”
If McCravy had been ruled out of bounds, there would have been time remaining on the clock. Instead, McEachern stormed the field and came away with a huge region win.
Sixth-ranked Hillgrove (5-1, 0-1) got the opportunity to take the lead late after McEachern (6-0, 1-0) opted to go for it on fourth-and-long from the Hillgrove 16. Stephens said he did not want to give the Hawks the opportunity to block the kick, and he trusted his defense to hold Hillgrove on a long field.
An incompletion gave the Hawks the ball with less than 2 minutes left, and plays of 48 and 19 yards had them in the red zone. Hillgrove converted a fourth-and-long after three straight incompletions, before McCravy’s run ended the game.
The first half was a defensive battle. The game started with five straight punts before Hillgrove was able to crack the scoreboard.
After having a touchdown taken off the board for an ineligible man downfield, McCravy found Jalen Royals for an 8-yard touchdown to put the Hawks up 7-0.
The teams traded punts again before McCravy was sacked and fumbled, giving McEachern the ball at the Hawks’ 14 yard line. Denzell Moore kicked a 22-yard field goal to get the Indians on the scoreboard.
Hillgrove was forced to punt again on the next drive, but McEachern fumbled on the return, setting up the Hawks at the 28-yard line. McCravy found Trevarus Walker for a 14-yard touchdown to cap off the drive.
“Some ‘no-name little Hillgrove kids’ did some things,” Ironside said. “We rise up, play well in this game. I’m proud of them. I’m tickled to death, I really am. I’m hurt for them over the loss, but we’ll get there.”
McEachern didn’t pick up a first down until its last drive of the half. It had minus-2 yards of total offense before quarterback Carlos Del Rio-Wilson led the Indians 59 yards down inside the 20, and Moore kicked another field goal as time expired in the half.
Del Rio-Wilson led the McEachern offense in the second half, rushing 19 times for 110 yards. Jordon Simmons and Javon Baker scored touchdowns for McEachern.
“The adjustment coming out was to kind of get the quarterback game going,” Stephens said. “Sometimes, when you can’t move people, you’ve got to block them down and kick out. He’s more than capable of being a running back.”
McEachern will now prepare for a showdown with seventh-ranked Marietta next week.
“You can enjoy this one until 6:29 Monday morning,” Stephens said. “Once we come in Monday morning at 6:30, we’ll put this one to rest, and it’s on to Marietta.”
By Alex Resnak MDJ Sports Correspondent
POWDER SPRINGS — McEachern had no problem wrapping up its non-region schedule with a perfect record Friday, beating East Coweta 53-15. McEachern (5-0) had a 33-7 lead at halftime and never let up.
“We’re still taking steps,” McEachern coach Franklin Stephens said. “I think we see how good we can be, but we still have some steps to take. We can’t get in those situations where we beat ourselves.”
Carlos Del Rio-Wilson completed four passes to Javon Baker on the drive for 63 yards and a 6-yard touchdown on the drive. Del-Rio Wilson finished 13-of-19 passing for 186 yards and two touchdowns, while Baker caught six passes for 80 yards and added a 30-yard touchdown run. Jordon Simmons added 70 yards and a touchdown on eight carries, while Christian Mason found the end zone three times and finished with 76 yards on eight carries.
“We know we can be really good offensively,” Stephens said. “When we’re clicking, we can do a lot. We want to find out just how high our ceiling is. We just still have those lulls. It’s not what the other team is doing. We do it to ourselves. We can’t have games where we’re playing the other team and the Indians.”
Overall, McEachern held East Coweta to just 76 total yards. East Coweta managed just five first downs in the game and converted just 1-of-10 third-down opportunities.
“Our defense played really well,” Stephens said. “They came out focused and stayed on their assignments. We knew they were going to try some things and come out here running right at us. I was happy with how we handled it.”
McEachern will face a tougher test next week when it opens Region 3AAAAAAA play against defending champion Hillgrove.
Martin Kester MDJ Sports Correspondent
SUWANEE — McEachern had another game delayed, but it did not have to wait for the next day to complete another victory.
One week after seeing their game with Cedar Grove postponed due to severe weather, the Indians overcame a short power outage, handing Collins Hill a 30-14 loss to spoil the Eagles’ homecoming night.
“We did some good things tonight,” McEachern coach Franklin Stephens said. “I thought we performed very well early in the game defensively.”
Meanwhile, the Indians only needed one play to get on the board.
“When my offensive coordinator called a double pass, I thought it would be interesting,” Stephens said. “It’s one of those things. We’re either going to hit it or miss it. We hit it and got off to a good start.”
Carlos Del Rio-Wilson tossed a lateral to Johmanuel Arnold, and after a few steps, the junior receiver launched a pass to a wide-open Gary Simpson for a 39-yard touchdown.
“We’re in a Cover-3 defense and preached all week to stay deep,” Collins Hill coach Lenny Gregory said. “Guys blow assignments, there you go, and it’s a touchdown.
“That’s just one example. There were multiple mistakes on both sides of the ball.”
While Collins Hill was making mistakes, McEachern went up another score behind the legs of Jordon Simmons. The senior tailback had five carries for 41 yards, including a touchdown run from 5 yards out and a 2-point conversion for a 15-0 lead before the lights went out at Fahring Field with 1:45 left in the first quarter.
The lights also went out at Collins Hill the last time in hosted a Cobb County team Sept. 6, when Marietta went on to win.
“From a preparation perspective, I thought our guys handled it like a mature football team and came out and performed well,” Stephens said.
The electrical issue led to a 15-minute delay for both teams before the game continued.
McEachern started the second quarter in similar fashion to the first with Del Rio-Wilson hitting a wide-open Dacari Collins, who ran with a convoy of blockers 40 yards for an easy touchdown and a 23-0 lead after the 2-point conversion.
The Collins Hill defense bent but did not break, earning a turnover on downs when Del Rio-Wilson could not connect with Simpson on a fade route late in the second quarter.
That momentum carried over for Collins Hill’s offense, which put together four first downs to drive deep into McEachern’s territory in the closing moments of the first half. The quarter came to an end with Sam Horn’s fourth-and-goal pass from the 2-yard line batted down, and the Indians went into the locker room up 23-0.
“Right before the end of the half, (Collins Hill) had a good drive, and I was proud of the way our defense stood up and kept them off the board,” Stephens said. “That’s one of our important goals — don’t give up points before the half.”
McEachern started the second half by taking advantage of good field position.
After a punt put the Indians on their own 44-yard line, it took nine plays for Del Rio-Wilson to find Collins again, this time for a 5-yard score and a 30-0 lead and a running clock into the fourth quarter.
“We were executing early on and getting some one-play drives,” Stephens said. “We feel we came out in the second half and did what they’re capable of doing — running the football and putting points on the board.”
By Adam Carrington [email protected]
POWDER SPRINGS — During the 7-plus minutes of football McEachern completed Friday night prior before severe weather led the game to be postponed until Saturday, the Indians could do nothing wrong.
McEachern had jumped out to a two-touchdown lead against defending Class AAA state champion Cedar Grove, but the Indians then had to wait nearly 24 hours before taking the field again.
It was up to McEachern to sustain the momentum, and it did so for the most part.
Jordon Simmons rushed for 73 yards on 12 carries and gave McEachern an insurance score in the fourth quarter on an 11-yard run in space with 3:10 to play in the game.
Once McEachern returned to the field Saturday, it looked as if the Indians were heading toward a running clock for the third straight game after jumping out to a 22-0 lead halfway through the second quarter.
“We really got off to a fast start (Friday night),” McEachern coach Franklin Stephens said. “It was important for our defense (Saturday) to come back out and get a big stop, and then, offensively, we can go down the field and get a score so we can get up by three scores and then start making them chase.”
But after McEachern went up three scores, Cedar Grove (2-2) started figuring out a way to sustain drives. The Saints chewed off the latter half of the second quarter to get on the board on Austin Smith’s 7-yard touchdown pass to Janiran Bonner with 13 seconds left.
Fortunately for McEachern’s defense, whatever fatigue it may have had did not show on the field.
The Indians forced the Saints to turn the ball over on downs on Cedar Grove’s first drive of the second half. Later in the frame, McEachern stopped a 6-plus-minute drive on the McEachern 21-yard line on fourth down when Jamil Burroughs sacked Smith on fourth down.
Early in the fourth quarter, McEachern’s offense allowed its defense to rest by sustaining a drive of its own, with Simmons accounting for 51 of McEachern’s 83-yard drive.
During Friday night’s portion of the game, Carlos Del Rio-Wilson hit Dacari Collins for a 15-yard touchdown to give the Indians the early lead. Then, the Indians recovered a muffed punt deep in Cedar Grove territory before Christian Mason added to McEachern’s lead with a 3-yard run.
By Michael Foster MDJ Sports Correspondent
POWDER SPRINGS — The public address announcer at Cantrell Stadium took on a secondary role Friday night, urging fans to pick up the applause in the second half of a game that seemingly had a conclusion before it began.
McEachern scored with ease on its first four possessions, took a six-touchdown lead into halftime and sat its starters in the second half in a 46-0 win over South Cobb.
Carlos Del Rio-Wilson completed 10 of 12 passes, including his first seven, while Dacari Collins reeled in a 56-yard touchdown pass and Jordan Simmons added three scores on the ground.
The Indians (2-0) were in somewhat of a subdued home opener after an impressive win over Brookwood last week in the Corky Kell Classic at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
But for first-year McEachern coach Franklin Stephens, it was a special night for him — his first official home victory at his new school.
“You appreciate what this place is,” Stephens said. “When I was an assistant back in the day, you’d have to walk across practice fields to get from the locker room to the field. At Tucker, you had to take a bus to home games, so to be here and be able to step right onto the field from your office basically — it is special.”
The Indians racked up 390 yards of offense and held the Eagles (0-2) to just 51. McEachern entered scoring territory on every first-half drive and only surrendered the ball on a turnover on downs in the second quarter, which was the consequence of a personal foul.
South Cobb did not threaten until the fourth, when quarterback Terrence Clark three a pass that was nearly hauled in for a circus catch in the end zone.
McEachern scored only once in a second half accompanied by a running clock, when backup quarterback Bryce Archie found Collins for a 9-yard score. Collins finished with 112 yards on four receptions.
Javon Baker added a 5-yard scoring reception, while Simmons had scoring runs of 7, 19 and 3 yards.
“We were cautioning our guys of a letdown,” Stephens said. “After an emotional win last week, you wanted guys to stay focused.”
The Indians will get a bye week to redirect their focus to Cedar Grove, which they will play for the second consecutive season.
For South Cobb, the challenge was even more daunting than last week’s opening loss to Pebblebrook. But the Eagles, clearly mismatched in size, never let their will wilt.
Clark, who entered the game to spell starter Prince Jordan, commanded the offense with 10 carries, including a highlight 22-yard run, and was 4-of-9 passing.
The Eagles also had considerable success chasing Del Rio-Wilson off his spot late in the second half, suffocating a few scoring attempts.
“Some people think I’m here coaching for the wrong reasons,” South Cobb coach Terry Jones said. “I’m here to put these kids in a position to learn. People outside this team don’t see what I see, and that’s kids with heart, a great attitude, and they don’t give up.”
The Eagles will look to earn their first win of the season next week at Sprayberry.
By Adam Carrington [email protected]
ATLANTA – Franklin Stephens could not have asked for a better debut as McEachern’s head coach.
The offense was clicking as the Indians accumulated 478 yards of total offense en route to a 48-10 victory over the Broncos on Saturday in the Corky Kell Classic at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The victory completed a four-game Cobb County sweep in the Classic. Marietta defeated Rome on Thursday, while Kell and Walton had posted wins earlier in the day at Mercedes-Benz.
Alabama-commitment Javon Baker came away with 142 yards receiving and a touchdown. Running back Jordon Simmons, who shared time with former standout Paris Brown a year ago, has 88 all-purpose yards and a touchdown. Fellow McEachern tailback Christian Mason led with 59 yards and two touchdowns.
If Stephens felt nervous about coaching his first McEachern game, he neither showed it or admitted it.
“I wasn’t nervous,” Stephens said. “I was more excited about my guys playing. I’ve been here since late March, and I started thinking about all our days at practice and it’s a lot of practice for one opportunity, and you want your guys to be at their best in that one opportunity.”
The Indians (1-0) started pulling away from Brookwood (0-1) in the second quarter after Del Rio-Wilson connected to Gary Simpson for an 8-yard touchdown for a 13-0 lead. While McEachern continued to hold Brookwood scoreless, the Indians struck again with 24 seconds left in the half when Del Rio-Wilson hit a wide open Javon Baker for an 8-yard touchdown pass.
The Indians’ offensive momentum carried over into the third quarter.
Simmons scored from 3 yards to put McEachern in front 28-10. Christian Mason, who led the Indians with 59 yards on eight carries, scored his second touchdown at the 4:32 mark to extend the lead before Sutton Smith added a rushing touchdown with 1:08 left to force a running clock.
“I thought our guys did a great job,” Stephens said. “We had a couple of miscues in the first half. I challenged them at half time to get open, and I think we figured out that we have some weapons.”
Chief Borders stood out as a potential defensive weapon at linebacker. His first-quarter interception led to McEachern’s opening touchdown, a Mason 2-yard run. Borders also had a sack in the game.
