Cedartown takes a trip to face the Hurricanes.
Cedartown’s perfect run through the first four games of 2017 was a great start for the Bulldogs, but then stormy weather on the road put a damper on plans to remain undefeated through the rest of the season.
The Cartersville Purple Hurricanes — who are defending state champions and have the top high school prospect in the country in Trevor Lawrence as their quar- terback — put on a 41-7 show for their homecoming game and the start of the region 5-AAAA schedule last Friday night.
A hard loss the Bulldogs look to put behind them, head coach Doyle Kelley said.
“They are good at what they do,” he said. “We probably played the best team in the state of Georgia in all classifications.”
Lawrence put up 16 of 21 for 350 yards and 3 touchdowns in the air, plus 2 touchdowns on the ground.
He proved an unstoppable force against the Bulldogs, who gave up a total of 406 yards on the night to the Hurricanes offense headed by Lawrence.
Cedartown’s yardage on the night totaled 146 yards by comparison.
The Bulldogs went scoreless through the half, but came back with a third quarter 26yard touchdown run by Keshun Kent. Kelley said he challenged the team to come back with their heads held high and fight back.
“We looked at the stands and I told the boys that our fans didn’t come here to watch Cartersville, they came out to watch us,” he said. “Our kids, they responded tonight... we were playing for Cedartown that second half. That’s what it’s all about. We want to bring pride to Cedartown - there’s pride here already. We want to get back to what Cedartown has traditionally done, and that’s win football games. We know we still have work to do, but we’re getting there.”
Now the Bulldogs have a tougher road ahead of them as they get over the loss to Cartersville on their homecoming night. They have to step right back up and get back on the field on Friday night as they host LaGrange in their second region contest of the season.
And despite recording his first loss to a top-ranked Carterville, Kelley isn’t happy that he went down to any team.
“I’m not glad I went down like this, I don’t care if it’s Cartersville or a team like Alabama,” he said. “As a coach you want to win them all. You can’t go perfect, but a coach don’t ever want to lose.”
His hopes are that by Friday night, the Bulldogs will have regrouped and will be ready to take a bite out of the Grangers, and get back on track for his hopes for the season.