THOMASVILLE — With a rare Saturday matinee kickoff time, the Thomasville Bulldogs put on an impressive performance in their Class AA state playoff first-round matchup.

The Bulldogs, behind a steady ground game, two deep strikes from the passing game and four interceptions from the defense, rolled to a 42-13 win over Westside-Augusta at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

“I’m so proud of our guys,” Bulldogs coach Zach Grage said. ‘A win is a win, and we get to play next week. I was glad we were able to put up a performance like that in front of our fans.” 

The Bulldogs advance to meet Dodge County, a 35-0 winner over Swainsboro, in the second round.

The Bulldogs (6-4), scored the game’s first 35 points and led 28-0 after a dominant first half. Thomasville racked up 275 yards of offense in the first two quarters, and held the Patriots to just 58 yards and three first downs. The Bulldogs defense also recorded three interceptions in the first half — the same number of completions Westside accumulated in the same stretch. 

“If we call it after the first three quarters, I’m ecstatic,” Grage said. ‘Offensively, we executed what we needed to execute. We were able to get big plays in the throw game. We got big runs. Overall, I thought it was good. 

Thomasville struck quickly, as Ronnie Baker connected with Joe Williams on a 34-yard touchdown pass on the game’s fourth play. The lead swelled to 14-0 on Ricky Fulton’s 9-yard touchdown run with 3.7 seconds left in the first quarter.

Dimitrius Myrick’s interception set up the Bulldogs at the Patriots’ 8-yard line midway through the second quarter, leading to Malik Harper’s 2-yard TD.

Two plays after Harper had a long touchdown run called back on a penalty, Fulton notched his second TD, a 32-yard burst, with 2:23 to go in the first half.

Westside ran just four plays on Thomasville’s side of the 50 in the first half, and their last such snap of the first half resulted in Jamie Williams’ interception.

Fulton capped a nine-play, 63-yard drive on Thomasville’s first possession of the second half with a 13-yard run. 

Baker hit Oxzavier Rivers with a 36-yard scoring strike for the Bulldogs’ final score.

A botched punt snap put the Patriots at the Bulldogs 23, and T.J. Price turned that into the first of his two touchdown passes, a 13-yarder to Jermichel Ambrose that the Bulldogs argued was the result of offensive pass interference, but to no avail.

“We’ve got to get that stuff fixed up,” Grage said. “We were signaling in wrong formations. Our personnel was all over the place. That will get cleaned up.

“We’ve got things to get cleaned up, but that’s good, because we’re not peaking. There are always things to work on. We are getting close to that point. but we are not there yet.”

Price’s 31-yard strike to Robert Pulliam was the final score, and play from scrimmage, for the game.

Thomasville’s rushing attack piled up 230 yards, and the Bulldogs finished with 436 yards of offense. Baker completed 12 of 19 passes for 206 yards.

The Bulldogs held the Patriots to just 14 yards rushing on 22 attempts. 

Grage also tipped his cap to the school staff and administration and to the MacIntyre Park Middle School cafeteria crew.

“They did an unbelievable job being johnny-on-the-spot to get these kids fed,” he said. “You want to talk about this community coming together and helping these guys out as I was freaking out in my office about how we’re going to play on Saturday.”