THOMASVILLE — Tykeem Wallace took a quick hand off from quarterback Kalique Guyton, ran to his left and down the Thomas County Central High School sidelines.

It was the spark the Jackets needed Friday night against Cook in a nonregion game at the Jackets Nest.

Wallace went untouched 91 yards for a score and Thomas County Central remained undefeated with a 26-6 rout of the Hornets on homecoming.

“I had to make a play for the team … get it going,” said Wallace who finished with two scores. “All I saw was daylight. When I get the ball, I want to score. It didn’t get started like we wanted it to, but we got the win.”

While the effects of last week’s open date were obvious, TCC (3-0) shook off a sluggish first quarter and made it look easy. After Wallace’s first touchdown gallop, Guyton found Jabais Kerbo on a 41-yard dump pass that Kerbo turned into a touchdown and a 13-0 advantage.

Wallace added an 18-yard score with 10:13 left in third quarter, then Carrington Robinson scored on a 4-yard plunge at the 6:48 mark of the third quarter to make it 26-0.

Cook’s Kenneth Mathis scored on a 1-yard run with 6:22 left in the game to prevent the shutout.

While Thomas County Central coach Ashley Henderson was happy to get the victory, he noted several flaws. The Jackets failed to execute on a fake punt in the first quarter, then they tossed two interceptions, one in the end zone that was returned to the TCC 33. 

“We’ve got to finish drives and that’s one thing I said after the game last week (against Thomasville),” Henderson said. “I said we’ve got to start finishing drives. We got people talking about you know, we better start worrying about the here and the now. We got people already looking down the road at games and we have not arrived yet. 

“We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to win Monday first, and then we have to win Tuesday. We’ve got to go game to game, day to day, practice to practice. We’re still trying to figure out how to practice. We’re getting closer, but we’re not going to have no long faces on a homecoming win. We’ve got plenty to work on, so we ought to be pretty busy next week.

Thomas County Central will play a rare Thursday night game on Sept. 19, playing Monroe at Hugh Mills Stadium in Albany.

While Henderson was critical of his team’s failure to finish some drives, he wanted to make sure to point out some positives.

“Tykeem Wallace is lightning in a bottle,” he said. “Kalique (Guyton) to me still stands in and extends plays really well, eyeing his guys down field. You have different guys each week making plays down field. You had Carrington (Robinson) make a first down. Kerbo scores down the sidelines on a good throw and catch. 

“Then Carrington stuck one in at running back. There were a lot of positive things. We’ve got to be able to extend drives, get rid of the turnovers and we will. Again, we’re a young football team and we’re still figuring this thing out. As long as the effort stays where it is, we’re good. It was never about effort, but we just have to play smarter.”