Calhoun coming home for the rematch
The Calhoun Yellow Jackets are coming home.
After traveling 870.2 miles round-trip the last two weeks to play, and win, two GHSA 5A state football playoff games, the Yellow Jackets are back at Phil Reeve Stadium where this long journey began four weeks ago Friday night to play Region 7 mate Blessed Trinity for the second time this season with a trip to the 5A state championship game next
Saturday afternoon in Atlanta on the line.
“We are super excited about getting to play at home this week,” Calhoun HS head football coach Clay Stephenson. “It’s going to be an incredible atmosphere and we’re very excited for the players to get to play another home game. We’re especially excited for our seniors getting one final opportunity to play in Calhoun and to walk across Yellow Jacket Drive one more time.
“When we played our last home game (against Decatur), we weren’t sure we would be able to play another game in our own stadium. So for our players to get to play one more time at home, that’s what we were hoping for. And fortunately we were able to do all the good things we needed to do to get another home game. I know we’re all very excited about it.”
Bring on the fact that the winner will head to Atlanta next Saturday for the 5A state championship and it’s more than just a home game, it’s a game that determines their reservation to the big high school football party next week in the state capital.
The teams are doing something this week that usually doesn’t happen in high school football — meeting for the second time in the same season. Or in this case, doing something hasn’t happened at all since Stephenson took over for Hal Lamb three years ago.
“We’ve never played the same team twice in a year since I’ve been here,” Stephenson
said. “”So it will be different. But we a lot about them and they a lot know about us, so I think that helps both teams.”
Calhoun beat the Titans, 3227, before a statewide television audience back on October 8, nearly two months ago, in Roswell in a stirring game that saw it sealed in the final minute when senior cornerback Cole Speer intercepted a pass.
Stephenson said the Titans, who were third in Region 7 behind Cartersville and Calhoun, are a very good team just like they the last time they played.
“They’re still good,” he said. “They’ve just got a great program. They still have one of the best (running) backs in the state. I know they had the injury-bug right after we played them and had some guys missing some games, but they’re healthy now and at full-strength so it’s going to be a real test for us. Just like it was the first time we played them.
“It’s going to a full 48-minute game, just like the first game was. It’s going to be a challenge beating a great football twice in the same year, but I know we’re looking forward to it. I’m sure they are as well and I think it will be a real battle between two great teams.”
The Titans, in their first meeting, was basically onedimensional against Calhoun,
throwing only five times while running the ball over 40. But their talented running back Justin Haynes went for over 200 yards and two touchdowns as the green-and-gold used ball control to not only move the rock, but to also keep that potent Calhoun offense on the bench.
After the loss to Calhoun, BT was drubbed by Cartersville, 49-21, but they have collected five straight wins since then, including three in the playoffs.
They began the postsason by defeating Southwest DeKalb, 41-20, and then knocked off Woodward Academy, 28-13, and last week eliminated Villa Rica, 49-7, to set up a second match with the blackand-Vegas-Gold. (Villa Rica is one of the teams that will replacing Blessed Trinity next year in Region 7 when the Titans are in the 6A classification).
There are only four 5A teams in the state still playing and it’s great that Calhoun is one of them, but Stephenson said he and his players can’t think in terms.
“You can’t really think about that because you’ve got to focus on the opponent you’re playing,” he said. “That’s for the fans and the mommies and daddies to think about things like that, but for us, the only thing we need to have on our minds is our next opponent and wanting to come out and play our best football. They have a great team and they’re going to want to get
back at us for the first game, so we need to make sure all our attention this week is on having four good days of practice and then coming out Friday night and playing our best game of the year.”
The kickoff Friday night at Phil Reeve Stadium is set for 7:30 p.m. and fans are urged to arrive as early as possible because of the large crowd that is anticipated.