Rockmart falls in a rough trip on the road at Bremen, but gets this week off.
BREMEN — The Rockmart Yellow Jackets fell to 1-3 on the road Friday night after they were unable to make key stops at the end of the game and try for a tie in the 17-14 loss to Bremen.
Rockmart’s defense was unable to stop Blue Devils fullback D.J. McBrayer on a final drive of the night, giving up a new set of downs with 2:47 left in the game, then again with 1:40 left.
This was following a field goal attempt by the Jackets late to tie the game that hit the uprights and gave Bremen the opportunity to drive and kill the clock.
“We’re still learning,” head coach Bin Turner said simply when asked what he felt happened with the defense at the end of the game.
The 1-3 Blue Devils snapped their threegame losing streak behind McBrayer on the night, who scored twice once late in the first quarter and then again in the third quarter on short runs to the end zone.
Rockmart started off the game with a 7-0 lead following two sets of downs by each team, capitalizing off of a fumble late in the first quarter that lead to Maurice Smith going in for a 9-yard touchdown run.
He later scored with 8:10 left in the third quarter on a 3-yard touchdown run.
“Defensively we’re coming along, and offensively we moved the ball well, but when we got down to the end zone we couldn’t capitalize,” Turner said.
He said one of the main problems with Friday’s game was the team spent more time on the field on defense, which took a toll in trying to capitalize off Blue Devil mistakes.
“Defensively, you have X amount of plays that you want to be on the field,” he said. “Toward the end of the game, we got to those number of plays and they got those number of plays on us.”
The real thriller of the night however was
Bremen’s Jake Verity, who broke a school record with a 63-yard free kick through the uprights for a field goal. The late second quarter score made the difference on the night after both teams matched the other score- for- score in the first and second half.
Rockmart will have the week off next Friday before playing Landmark Christian on Oct. 2.
He said his team still faces much work before the coming home game, and said the small things - not keeping up a block long enough, or not wrapping up a runner on defense with enough force to stop the gain - are still things his players are working to improve.
“Little things are what win or lose football games, and we’re going to work those out,” he said.
With the extra time for practice, Turner has one simple goal for the Jackets.
“We’ve got to learn how to finish it,” he said.
He added that he felt the Jackets would use the time off during the week in order to get healthy again.
“We’re going to heal up and get our minds right and get ready for Landmark, who will be a very good opponent in two weeks. Then we start region play,” he said.