Home for the win
Georgia School for the Deaf’s football team beats The Carolinas 64-28 on homecoming.
The cool and damp weather Saturday afternoon was just about perfect for a football game according to Georgia School for the Deaf head coach Erik Whitworth.
His team’s first win of the season made it even more so.
Hosting The Carolinas schools for the deaf, GSD found success on the ground and took advantage of its opponent’s mistakes to get a 64-28 victory on homecoming.
“It makes it sweet. And in front of a crowd,” Whitworth said. “I didn’t figure we would have a whole lot because of the weather, but we had a pretty good crowd.”
Senior Zykevious Walton ran for 289 yards and five touchdowns on 12 carries for the Tigers, and quarterback DeMarco Brown added 132 yards and two touchdowns rushing, plus another passing.
GSD was up 36-22 at halftime and held the visitors to just six points in the second half of the eight-man contest.
“This was a true eightman game because we only had eight players and they only had eight players,” Whitworth said of the slim rosters for both teams.
“I guess it came down to which eight wanted it the most, and today our guys wanted it the most.”
The Tigers (1-2) recovered three fumbles and had an interception in the game, which also featured timely blocking by offensive linemen Ama rius Windhom, Jamond Davis and James Cather.
The momentum swung the Tigers’ way from the start as the opening kickoff was muffed by The Carolinas and recovered by GSD.
Brown found Christian Forbes for a touchdown pass three plays later and ran in his first of two twopoint conversions of the game to put Georgia up 8-0.
The Carolinas turned their first drive into points as well as they scored a touchdown on a run with 6:18 left in the quarter. The two-point play failed, and GSD’s lead was cut to two.
Walton didn’t let that last for long as he broke off for a huge run down the right side for a touchdown with 3:45 to go. Brown hit Tre Miles for the first of two two-point passes in the game to make it 16-6. The Tigers recovered a fumble by The Carolinas on the ensuing drive and turned it into another score when Walton found the open lane again for a touchdown
just over a minute into the second quarter.
The pass on the two-point conversion failed, but GSD had amassed a 22-6 lead and would roll from there.
After losing to the Tennessee School for the Deaf and Louisiana School for the Deaf to open the season, Whitworth said his team began showing signs of new life in practice early last week.
“Maybe it’s just finally clicking with them,” Whitworth said. “We went through those first two games and got beat pretty bad. Maybe they realized what they’ve got to do.”
GSD opened the second half with a 20-0 run thanks to touchdown runs of 54 and 69 yards by Walton, and a 43-yard run by Brown.
Alberto Pantoja scored the final Tiger touchdown of the day on a 4-yard run late in the fourth quarter.
GSD travels to Morganton, North Carolina, next Saturday to play The Carolinas again. The Tigers’ next home game is Oct. 24 at 2 p.m. against Louisiana School for the Deaf.