THOMASVILLE — Region 1-AA champions has a nice ring to it. In the case of the Thomasville Bulldogs, it’s a crown they’ve now worn three times under the direction of head coach Zach Grage.

Following his team’s 15-8 victory over Fitzgerald last Friday that captured the Bulldogs’ first region title since 2019, Grage discussed the significance of not taking region titles for granted and also the importance of staying focused on the ultimate prize – a state title.

“That’s one thing I was told early in my career, we’re really blessed to have some region championships and some playoff runs,” Grage said. “It’s something you’ve always got to cherish and be thankful for because not everybody gets to have this opportunity. You make sure you cherish it and you relish it. It’s something nobody can ever take away. 

“But you also understand it’s not the end goal. If we go lay an egg here in the first round, you might forget about it. We’ve still got work to do.”

The Bulldogs have won four straight heading into their regular season finale at Veterans Memorial Stadium against Berrien. While the Bulldogs have locked up the region title and home games for the first two rounds of the playoffs, the focus is still on finishing region play undefeated and not on the upcoming playoffs. 

“We’re 100% focused on Thomasville this Friday. We can worry about that other stuff next week. We don’t even know who we’re playing, it really doesn’t matter,” Grage said. “We went the first five games; it was our first playoff run and our fifth game was Oconee (County). We really built that up to have that state championship type atmosphere, and we dropped the ball. Now we’re working with our second set of five games. We’ve won our first four and set ourselves up for a state championship type atmosphere. Now we need to take care of business.”