Gordon Lee relegated to No. 4 seed
Trion senior running back Rob Brown ran for 279 yards and four touchdowns on 30 carries and the Bulldogs secured the No. 2 spot from Region 6-A with a convincing 43-7 victory at rival Gordon Lee on Friday night.
Brown began his night with a 44-yard touchdown run with 4:44 left in the opening quarter and added a 37yard scoring run at the 9:31 mark of the second quarter. He also picked up a 2-point conversion to make it 15-0.
A 7-yard touchdown run with 1:46 left before halftime gave Trion a 22-0 lead at the break and he concluded his night with a 25-yard scoring scamper at the 6:30 mark of the third.
Logan Eller ran one in from 13 yards out with less than two minutes gone in the fourth to add to the lead before Gordon Lee finally got on the board exactly two minutes later on an 11-yard run by Nate Dunfee. Montgomery Kephart would add the extra point.
Eller capped the scoring with a 3-yard plunge with 1:34 left to play. Devin Dalton was 5 of 5 on extra-point attempts for the Bulldogs.
Trion finished with 421 yards of offense, 359 coming on 41 rushing attempts. Freshman quarterback Kade Smith went 7 of 17 in the air for 62 yards.
Meanwhile, Gordon Lee was held to just 65 yards of offense, nearly evenly split between the ground and the air. Conner Whitman was 3 of 9 passing for 33 yards, Caden Derryberry had one catch for 17 yards, Kade Cowan had one catch for 12, while Penn Askew added one catch for four yards. However, six different running backs amassed just 32 yards on 30 attempts, none of which finished with more than nine yards.
Askew led the defense with 11 tackles, two assists and one quarterback hurry, while Cowan and Holt Roberts had six tackles apiece.
Trion (9-1) will host Region 8 No. 3 seed Social Circle in the first round of the Class A Public School state playoffs. Gordon Lee (5-5) will be the No. 4 seed from the region and will make the drive to Region 8 champion Washington-Wilkes. Those first-round games will be played this Saturday night.