TIFTON — The Fitzgerald High Purple Hurricane ended a one-year drought last Friday and advanced to the second round of the state Class AA football playoffs.

Prior to the 2017 season, the Hurricane had been to the second round or better 10 straight years. Now they are back in familiar territory, with an eye towards going even further. For that to happen, though, they will have to put their 8-3 record against 9-2 Swainsboro and they will have to win at Tiger Stadium.

Swainsboro has not been to the quarterfinals since 2003, but this year’s squad is one in good shape to go deep.

Fitzgerald has played several teams this season who prefer to run.

Swainsboro is not one of them.

“They’re more of a throwing team,” said head coach Tucker Pruitt. And how.

Kade Youmans has 2,110 passing yards, according to team stats on MaxPreps. His top three receivers have more yards than any of the running backs. R.J. Phillips leads the pack with 14 touchdowns and 765 receiving yards. Ja’von Brown has 482 yards (eight touchdowns) and Cedric Seabrough has 434. Robert Allen leads ground attack with 431 yards. The team has nine rushing scores.

Don’t think the Tigers are averse to grounding out yards, though. They just do it in a different way.

“A lot of their passing game is their running game,” said Pruitt. Swainsboro likes short passes, quick routes. “A really good spread team,” he said.

Swainsboro didn’t lose any games in Region 2 and dropped two contests in non-region play. Those two were to Dublin and Washington County, teams that are a combined 19-3. The losses came by a combined nine points. They also have a win over Jefferson County, which won Region 4. Amazingly, the Tigers have not been ranked this season.

“They’re right in the thick of it,” said Pruitt.

Defensively, Swainsboro has given up 128 points in 2018. One-third of that was the loss to Washington County. No one else has score more than 20 points and at one point, the Tigers had four shutouts in five games.

Fitzgerald put in arguably its best showing of the year last week when it smashed Harlem by a 51-14 count.

It was an especially fine night for Damien Devine, who scored four touchdowns. Pruitt said he had seven receptions for 183 yards and nine carries for 64 yards. The longest pass of the day, however, went to Ozzie Hampton, who snuck behind the defense and took a Justin Reliford throw 95 yards to paydirt.

Reliford and Kody Krause both did good things at quarterback, said Pruitt.

Fitzgerald’s defense contributed by keeping Harlem running back A.J. Brown out of the end zone. He came closest with a dive near the goal line, but the Hurricane defense separated him from the football and came up with the fumble recovery.

That was no easy task, Pruitt said.

“Brown still had 150 yards,” he said. “You could hardly get him.”