Heritage rolls to NGAC football championship
There wasn’t anything particularly fancy about the way the Heritage Generals won the North Georgia Athletic Conference football championship game this past Thursday.
But for a program that has come up short in the title game on several occasions in the past decade, style points weren’t important.
Keeping the ball on the ground for the majority of the game, Heritage used a significant size advantage up front to grind up the clock and eventually wear down the Gordon Lee Trojans to claim its first championship since 2008 with a 22-6 victory in Chickamauga.
“I think we’ve been in the title game about seven times since (2008), so it was about time,” Heritage head coach Mel Edwards said. “It was about time we finally got one more of these.”
Even with the game being played a week later than originally scheduled, the Generals picked up right where they left off following a 22-0 semifinal win over Rossville back on Oct. 11.
They drew first blood by taking the opening kickoff and driving 56 yards in 10 plays, while also taking over 5:30 off the clock. After a third-down penalty inside the redzone threatened to derail the march, Heritage turned to the air as Kaden Swope hit Payton Newman on a clutch 21-yard scoring strike.
It was the Generals’ only pass of the drive and one of just two completed passes for the offense all afternoon long. Paxton Mccrary ran in the 2-point conversion to make it 8-0 with 2:16 left in the first quarter.
After the two teams exchanged punts, including a 50-yarder by Gordon Lee’s Nate Dunfee, the Trojans used a 17-yard Kade Cowan-to-bo Rhudy pass to jump-start a drive. Gordon Lee would take the ball from its own 46 down to the Heritage 10 in the final minute of the first half, looking to tie things up.
But Cowan was brought down for a 3-yard loss and on the very next play, Heritage defensive back Matthew Adair went up high to snag a Cowan pass attempt at the 2-yard line with just 44 seconds remaining in the half, preserving the 8-0 halftime lead.
The Generals would put the game away in the third quarter by scoring twice off short fields.
Mccrary’s 27-yard punt return early in the second half would set up his team at the Trojans’ 31 and Mccrary would carry three times before Bryce Travillion went four yards on a quick handoff to add to the lead. Mccrary added the conversion to double the Generals’ lead to 16-0.
Then, after the Trojans coughed up the ball on a fake punt attempt inside their own 30 later in the period, Heritage used a 10-yard burst by Mccrary and 15-yard scamper by Swope on a fake pitch to get the ball down to the 2. One play later, Travillion took another quick handoff on an inside trap to make it 22-0. The conversion pass attempt would come up short.
Heritage would turn the ball over on downs at the Gordon Lee 25 with 2:58 left in the game and the Trojans would use the passing game to get on the board late. Cowan was 4-of-4 on the drive for 72 yards - 60 coming on three catches by Dunfee - before Dunfee put up the final six points of the game by running it in from nine yards out with 40 seconds to play.
Thanks in part to outstanding field position, the Generals finished with just 89 yards on the ground and only 22 yards through the air. Mccrary, named the championship game MVP, led the way with 66 yards on 12 carries, while the defense limited the Trojans to 54 yards rushing and 89 yards passing, though 75 of Gordon Lee’s total yards came on its final drive.
“These boys have worked hard all season and they worked hard together,” Edwards said. “We always say defense wins championships and our coaches have done a great job to get the defense ready. I’m proud of the whole team for their efforts and I’m proud of the coaching staff.”
Cowan was 5-of-6 passing for 89 yards for the Trojans, while Dunfee picked up 31 yards rushing on nine carries to go with his 60 yards receiving.
“You have to give Gordon Lee a whole lot of credit,” Edwards added. “They didn’t even know they were going to be in the game (until late last week), so they just had a week to prepare. They fought hard and my hat’s off to them for the effort that they gave on both sides of the ball.”