Bulldogs struggle vs. ’Canes

CEDARTOWN — Make that 5-0 for the top ranked Cartersville Purple Hurricanes, who blew through their first region game of the season at Cedartown with a 44-6 win on Friday night.

Cartersville put up 370 yards of total offense on the night with quarterback Trevor Lawrence in command, netting 299 passing yards on the night off going 20 for 31 on the night and only giving up a single pick, which accounted for Cedartown’s lone score.

The Bulldogs’ Tony Mathis grabbed the pick six early, but following that Cedartown wasn’t able to keep up with the quickpaced offense of the Hurricanes.

“The thing is when you defend those guys, they have so many weapons out there. And that quarterback is so smooth,” said Bulldogs head coach Scott Hendrix.

“We got some pressure at times, but I thought defensively we played pretty well.”

Otherwise it was Lawrence’s show on the field through the second quarter and into the second

Cedartown’s Tony Mathis bobbles and completes a pass from Trevon Wofford during the first quarter against Cartersville.

half as he put up more than 200 yards of offense alone during the first half, and capitalized off of interceptions thrown by Trevon Wofford during the first half that ended with shortyardage touchdowns.

The Bulldogs put up only 69 total yards on offense, ending the first half with minus 2 yards off of lost yardage given up to Kevin Myrick / Polk County Standard Journal

the Cartersville defense after getting first downs.

Hendrix said that the Hurricanes defense gets much of the credit for their win on the night.

“They’re a real good football team and we made some mistakes,” he said. “Their offense gets a lot of publicity, but they are really hard to move the ball against, and their secondary is sound.”

Cartersville head coach Joey Mathis, a Cedartown alumni, said that his team still has some adjustments to make as they hope to continue their undefeated streak through region play.

“The saying defense wins championships is true, and that’s what we hang our hat on,” he said. “We want to keep our offense on the field, but our defense gets us opportunities to score, and they get hats on the ball.”

Mathis added that his team will have to work during practice to clean up some mistakes, especially on gaining penalties. The Hurricanes racked up 115 yards in fouls on 13 flags, compared to 35 yards on six flags for Cedartown.

Cedartown travels to LaGrange next Friday night for another big region test.

“You don’t want to let this week’s performance affect next week’s performance,” Hendrix said. “You want them to come in and work hard and prepare for LaGrange, which is another important region game for us.”

Cartersville continues region play by traveling to Central Carroll.