MORGAN COUNTY
Morgan County football opened up its season with a dominant win over Social Circle this past Friday.The Bulldogs jumped out to an early lead and never let the Redskins even come close, convincingly winning 41-7.
Morgan County head coach Clint Jenkins was impressed with how his team came out ready to play.
“I thought it was a good start. We wanted to go out and get a little momentum,” Jenkins said. “I thought we did a lot of good things out there on Friday night. “Offensively, we did some good things in the run game. Defensively, we did a great job of running to the football, which was probably as good as we’ve ever done since I have been here. So, we are excited about all of that.”
Bulldog senior Jay Dorsey started the offensive showcase with an 83-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. The shifty back found a gap and exploited it with his speed as no defender caught him.
Morgan’s defense shut down Social Circle on the next drive, too, giving its offense favorable field position. The Bulldogs took advantage of the Redskins’ offensive woes and scored a few plays later.
Senior tight end Antavious Elder scored on a 3-yard run to give Morgan a 14-0 lead after the PAT. The Bulldogs’ dominance continued in the second quarter and into halftime with a 20-0 advantage.
Morgan’s defensive unit again stalled out a Social Circle drive toward the end of the first quarter, leading to Christian Monfort making the Redskins pay with another rushing score for the Bulldogs in the second.
A missed PAT following Monfort’s score deprived Morgan of a true three-touchdown lead, but it didn’t matter. The Bulldogs had all the momentum and gained control of the game after their first score by Dorsey.
Dorsey scored his second and final touchdown of the night with 6:33 remaining in the third quarter.
Heading into the fourth, the Bulldogs led the Redskins 27-7 but weren’t done yet, though.
After a 42-yard run by Dorsey to the Social Circle 15-yard line, Monfort crossed the goal line for a second time. A few drives later, fellow sophomore Jordan Gordon got into the end zone for a score.
Morgan’s offense racked up 486 total yards, with Dorsey gaining 200 all-purpose yards. The Bulldogs senior rushed for a team-high 192 yards with two touchdowns, followed by Gordon with 89 yards and a score.
Montfort added 76 yards, including his pair of touchdowns in Friday night’s win.
Davis Strickland and Talan Fuller split time at quarterback. Strickland, a sophomore, totaled 71 yards on 7-of-11 attempts. Fuller, the senior who made the start, completed 5-of-8 passes for 58 yards.
Ty Tillery (four catches, 54 yards) and Jay Elder (five catches, 40 yards) were the leading receivers.
Morgan’s defense gave up only 183 yards of total offense and one touchdown. Bulldog defenders Trevon Rhodes, Jordan Gordon, Jamel Cox and Landen Vickers each finished the night with six tackles each. Also, six Morgan players totaled nine tackles for loss, with Antavious Elder accounting for three of them.
Despite such a lopsided win on Friday, Jenkins acknowledged his team still has to clean up a few things.
“We’ve got some things that we need to learn from,” Jenkins said. “[There] were probably too many procedure penalties. I don’t know if we were just anxious or just first-game [jitters]. We made some first-game procedural mistakes with penalties on offense. We’ve got to cut that back a little bit.”