THOMASVILLE — Richmond Academy kept getting punched in the gut Friday night.
Thomas County Central battering rams Eric Dodson, James Davis and Curtis Brooks, Thomas County Central hammered the Musketeers all night in a Class AAAA playoff game at Thomas County Stadium. The Yellow Jackets’ starting backfield tallied 285 of the team’s 386 rushing yards while rolling to a 56-7 victory.
The win advanced the Yellow Jackets (11-1) to the quarterfinal round where they will play Sandy Creek. A coin toss today will determine who hosts the game.
Central’s offense scored on eight of 10 possessions, attempted just one pass and never punted.
“We don’t play anybody that runs (the veer) and it’s tough when you only get three days to prepare for them,” Hughes said. “It was tough. Even if we prepared for it and knew what was coming, we weren’t going to stop it.”
It didn’t help the Musketeers’ cause that the Yellow Jackets had great field position in a 28-point second half. Three of Central’s four scoring drives started at Richmond’s 13, 35 and 29-yard lines. The Musketeers (8-4) turned the ball over on three straight possessions, including interceptions by Reshard Cliett and A.J. Larkins.
“Anytime you get a short field, that’s what we work on,” Central coach Bill Shaver said. “We call it sudden change. Defense, you create a turnover and the offense makes sure you put it in and score. We did that all night. It obviously makes it a lot easier when you get a turnover. Our defense likes to get turnovers. It makes them feel like they’re part of the scoring. They’ve been stellar all year long.”
The miscues started on the opening kickoff for the Musketeers as the Yellow Jackets ripped the ball away from Richmond Academy’s return man. Two plays later, sophomore James Davis scampered 19 yards for the game’s first score.
“When you play a team this good and with this much tradition, we knew coming into it, we talked about it all week, that they could snowball us,” Hughes said. “If they got any momentum, they were going to build on that and snowball us. We were going to try to take any kind of momentum away from them. We gave it to them on the first play of the game and it killed us.”
The touchdown was the first of two for Davis. He finished with 104 yards rushing. Brooks led the team with 117 yards and two touchdowns. Dodson also scored twice and added 64 rushing yards.
“Their ends made it a little easier on us. It gave our quarterback easy reads,” Shaver said. “I guess (their coach) made a comment somewhere that they had to make sure they contain Dodson. They were running their ends up the field, letting us hand the ball inside. Our tackles (Ryan Parmer and Nick Glass) were getting up on the linebackers well, and the backs were making their break off of it.”
Central’s second and third-team quarterbacks added touchdown runs in the second half. Eric McCraw had a nine-yard run, and Jay Jones finished the scoring with a 27-yard jaunt.
The 56 points were the most by Central since it notched 62 against Bainbridge in 2006.
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