Commerce ends Gordon Lee’s gridiron season
Trojans fall, 28-14, in second round
The state-ranked Commerce Tigers, champions of Region 8-A, found itself in a tooth-and-nail battle with visiting Gordon Lee on Friday night.
However, a fourth-down stop with 5:32 to go led to the gamesealing touchdown and the Tigers ended the best season for the Trojans since 2002 with a 2814 victory in the second round of the Class A Public School state playoffs.
“When I came back to Gordon Lee (from Trion), it was freshman year for the seniors we have now,” head coach Josh Groce said. “I knew what kind of talent they had, it was just a matter of learning how to win and they did that this year.”
All week long, few people around the state gave Gordon Lee any chance of hanging with the longtime Class A football power, but more than a few eyes were opened when the Trojans went into the locker room down by just seven points and even more eyes were opened after the first drive of the second half.
Down 14-7, Gordon Lee took the ball and milked a whopping 8:13 off the clock in one of its most impressive drives of the season. Starting at its own 15yard line, the Trojans went 85 yards in 14 plays, with all but five yards coming on the ground.
A huge offsides call on the Tigers on fourth-and-3 from the Commerce 40 kept the drive alive and a 19-yard sprint by Brody Cobb set up Cade Peterson for a 4-yard TD run as Montgomery Kephart’s extra point tied the game with 3:47 left in the third quarter.
A good kick return set up shop for Commerce at its own 42 yardline and they would move to the Gordon Lee 27 before a false start penalty forced them into a fourth-and-7 situation from the Trojans’ 32.
But on the next snap, quarterback Trey Huff found running back Sammy Brown all alone out in the flat and the freshman would haul in the pass and rumble the rest of the way to put the Tigers back on top, 21-14, with just 32 seconds left in the quarter.
After an exchange of punts, Gordon Lee would take over at its own 23, hoping to march for a game-tying score. But three carries netted eight yards and, with the possibility of not getting the ball back, the Trojans elected to go for it on fourthand-two from the 31.
However, the Tigers stacked up the play just past the line of scrimmage and an official measurement showed the Trojans had come up a yard short.
Gordon Lee fans had their hopes briefly renewed when Commerce fullback Elijah Burns coughed up the ball three plays later, but the senior was able to cover it back up and Brown went 11 yards on fourth-and-three to move the chains. Two plays later, Brown crashed through for another 11-yard run, this one ending in the endzone to effectively seal the win with 2:21 remaining.
It was Brown’s second TD of the night as he opened the game with an 11-yard scoring run midway through the first quarter. Gordon Lee countered with a four-play, 80-yard drive as Nate Dunfee outran the defense for a 53-yard score, but the Tigers answered with a 14play, 76-yard march as Dreylan Martin punched it in from
two yards out on the fifth play of the second quarter.
Gordon Lee forced a Commerce fumble at the Tigers’ 34 with 4:40 to go before halftime, but the offense would come up empty as a fourth down pass in the closing seconds fell incomplete out of the back of the endzone.
Peterson, who led all of Class A Public coming into the game and was second statewide among all running backs in yardage, finished with 95 yards on 20 carries, putting him at 1,806 for the season and setting a new Gordon Lee record. He also finished the
year with 27 touchdown runs.
Cobb picked up 57 yards on 12 carries and Groce went 7 of 14 for 80 yards. Neal had four catches for 48 yards and Peterson had three grabs for 32 yards. All total, the Trojans had 286 yards of offense, 206 on the ground.
Commerce (11-1) will now host defending state champion Irwin County (9-3), a 14-0 winner over Wilcox County, in Friday’s quarterfinal round, while Gordon Lee saw its run come to a close with a final 10-2 overall mark.
“I’ve been doing this 17 years now and this is the roughest
end (to a season) I’ve had,” Groce explained. “Obviously, part of it was because we had such a successful season, but I’ve also seen a lot of these kids play since they were seven or eight years old because of my nephew (Blake Groce) being on the team. They’ve done a great job laying the groundwork for us building a program and I do believe the kids coming up behind them are going to pick it up where these seniors left off. We don’t want a 10-2 season and turn around and go backwards the next year. We want to continue to have success.”