Southeast Whitfield 42, Gilmer 14

With starting running back Christian Gillespie out with an injury, senior Denzell Allen led the Southeast Whitfield High School Raiders with three rushing touchdowns and to a win on the road over Gilmer Friday night, 42-14.

Gilmer scored the first and last touchdown of the night, while the Raiders (3-4, 1-2 in Region 6-4A) sandwiched their 42 points consecutively in-between.

Allen found the end zone on runs of 58, 33 and 1 yards to end the night with 207 rushing yards on 21 carries.

“He’s a bigger back. He ran the ball really well,” Southeast Whitfield coach Sean Gray said. “The linemen did well, too. He ran right down the middle. He had a huge night for us.”

Southeast Whitfield quarterback Adam Sowder got in on the action with two rushing scores on runs of 33 and 26 yards. Sowder also connected with senior tight end Zac Cole on a 3-yard score to cap of scoring for the Raiders. The last touchdown for Southeast Whitfield was set up by a 35-yard reception to Cole from Sowder on the previous play.

On defense for the Raiders, Terry Jeffries had an interception in the end zone during the second quarter to rob Gilmer a chance of tying the game, 14-14.

The Raiders are off Friday.

“The biggest thing is this keeps us alive,” Gray said. “If we beat Heritage (two weeks from now) we are still in the mix. We have another week to get healthy. We hopefully get healed up, and if we can do that we feel like we have a good shot.”

Northwest Whitfield 36, LaFayette 14

Northwest Whitfield tallied five fumbles on the night, but came away with its first region win of the season Friday after topping LaFayette on the road, 36-14.

LaFayette took an early lead 7-0, and the Bruins (4-2, 1-1 in Region in 6-6A) responded quickly. After the Bruins’ first fumble, LaFayette took a 14-7 lead.

“That was about the end of the positive offense for them,” Northwest Whitfield coach Josh Robinson said. “We played really well and disciplined despite the turnovers. Our offense was out there a lot and had a lot of yards.”

Robinson said while his team’s offense was productive, the defense was just as powerful.

“I couldn’t be more proud of them, especially the defense,” he said. “They just did a great job of creating positive situations for our offense.”

Jamarey Hull led the Bruins with two sacks, a forced fumble, three more tackles for loss and two pass deflections. Jeb Brooker had a blocked punt and Jacob Sanders had an interception for the Bruins.

Dominique Sistrunk scored two rushing touchdowns, while quarterback Ty Fisher rushed for another and found Seth Henderson for a score through the air. Fisher also found Matthew Redmond for a two-point conversion, and Brady Hughes rounded out the scoring for the Bruins with a rushing touchdown.

Northwest Whitfield hosts Pickens on Friday.

Trion 26, Christian Heritage 7

Christian Heritage dropped its second consecutive game in a road loss to Trion Friday night, 26-7.

Lions coach Jay Poag said his players struggled to rally any momentum as Trion controlled most of the time of possession.

“It was another physical night,” Poag said. “They were eating up a lot of the clock with their wing-T offense.”

Meanwhile, Christian Heritage (4-2, 1-2 in Region 6-A) was without both its starting quarterback Matthew Neff and starting running back Gage Leonard, both held out because of concussions.

Ethan Smith scored the only touchdown for Christian Heritage on a 20-yard run.

“It was a long night for the Lions,” Poag said. “We’ll need to regroup this week, get some injured guys back. We still have all of our goal in front of us, and if we continue we will get better.”

The Lions are back on the road Friday when they travel to Bowdon.