Darlington uses ground game to defeat Bowdon
BOWDON — Darlington used seven different ball-carriers on Friday night in an 18-7 win against host Bowdon.
Elijah Mckoy ( 59 yards), Tijai Whatley (52) and Landon Lawrence (51) led the way. Hunter Manning finished the night 9-of-14 for 111 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Bowdon’s coach Robert Andrews saw signs of life from his squad even after Friday’s loss.
Even though the Bowdon High School football team dropped the 18- 7 contest to Darlington at Warren P. Sewell Field, there were several positives the first-year head coach was able to take from the game. Most of which were the way his team played after a sloppy few minutes in the first quarter.
“When we got down two scores early, we could have folded up shop. Our kids didn’t, they were resilient and continued to fight,” said Andrews.
“We cut it to a score once in the third there, we just couldn’t get them off the field defensively to get it back to go in and put us ahead,” Andrews added. “We had a drive there in the middle of the fourth quarter that we just couldn’t finish. We had several drives (Friday) that if we finish them, the game is different.”
The Bowdon defense was able to hold a Tiger team that was averaging almost 30 points a game to its lowest scoring total of the season and showed some promising things. That came with senior linebacker C.J. Brewer in limited minutes following an injury early in the game.
“I’ll tell you, (Darlington) is stout on offense. Every single one of their skill players was a threat to score and they were very good and physical up front and their quarterback was a great operator. I was extremely proud of our football team. We’ve just got to do a better job,” Andrews said. “( Brewer) probably could have gone, but we had some guys who work hard in practice and we wanted to see what they could do against tough competition. We had a freshman, Zaylin Wood, and he made a couple nice plays. Drew Duffie has been pushing me on the field trying to get himself out there and he came out and made a couple nice tackles.”
Bowdon (1-3) scored its first touchdown on a two-play, 65-yard drive. Cason Parmer opened with a 40-yard run and Tay Sheppard followed with a 25-yard run for the score. That made it 12-7 at the time, but the Red Devils couldn’t get any closer.
The problem was the Red Devils just dug themselves a hole early.
Darlington pieced together a 13-play, 75yard drive that took up almost the first six minutes of the half , using a fake punt as the snap was handled by upback Mckoy for a 25-yard run. A 15-yard personal foul was assessed on the play, but the yardage was still enough for the first down. The drive was capped by a 22-yard pass from Manning to Jake Maxwell. The Tigers tried to catch Bowdon off-guard on the try and have Manning run it in, but he was stopped short of the goal line.
The Red Devils then gifted Darlington (4-0) a score as a false start and a fumble opened up their first drive. Robert Ledbetter fell on the loose ball, setting up a 25-yard drive as Manning took it in himself from the one. This time the Tigers lined up its offense, but an incomplete pass left the score at 12-0 with just under four minutes to go in the second quarter.