On the strength of four touchdowns by junior running back Evan Bennett, the Gatewood Gators broke a four-game losing streak on Oct. 21, with a 38-28 win over Edmund Burke Academy (EBA) in Waynesboro.
The win bumped the Gators up to being a .500 team at 4-4 with just two regular-season games left. One of those four “wins,” however, came just one week earlier courtesy of a late forfeit by St. Mary’s High in Fairburn.
“They called on Tuesday and said they had injuries and a couple of starters who just couldn’t make it that weekend for whatever reason, so they were down to 13 players,” Gatewood head coach Jeff Ratliff explained. “I don’t think I’d ever accepted a forfeit before and there wasn’t any time left to find another opponent and prepare, so I just told our athletic director to make sure they (St. Mary’s) called the league to officially forfeit, just so there wouldn’t be any question later.”
The forfeit came at an especially bad time in the season, Ratliff added, as his team had come off their scheduled bye just a week earlier.
“I think it’s bad to sit out that long. I mean, the open week can be good for healing and even for correcting mistakes, but two open weeks back-to-back? I can’t be sure how my team is going to respond,” the coach said. “I mean, we’d lost four in a row and we already have a young team as far as experience goes. You just don’t know how 16, 17, and 18-year-old kids are going to respond. But yeah, give my guy’s credit, I think they played their best game of the year Friday night.”
Bennett opened up the scoring for Gatewood with a quick 3-yard scamper in the opening quarter, followed by a Jayden Daniel extra point. The duo combined again in the Gators’ first possession of the second quarter, this time with Bennett carrying it 5 yards down the right side for the TD.
The Spartans countered with a pair of second-quarter TDs, including one within the final minute of the half to make it 14-14 at the break.
Gatewood received the ball when the third quarter began but couldn’t move the ball and was forced to punt. Edmund Burke then faced the same scenario, but the long snap sailed over their punter’s head and Gatewood recovered just inside the Spartans' territory. Gators quarterback Ames Johnson moved the ball on the ground to about the EBA 20, but the drive stalled out, forcing Daniel into his first field goal attempt of the year.
The junior kicker came through, though, from 37 yards out to put Gatewood back on top by three.
But the Spartans were not rolling over. They countered on their next drive with a 57-yard touchdown pass by quarterback Grant Mobley and a good PAT to go up 21-17 with their first lead of the game. On their next possession, however, Johnson made the handoff to Bennett, who completed a long run down the left side to the Spartans' 10-yard line. Two plays later, he carried it 6 yards for his third TD of the game and Gatewood regained the lead at 24-21.
Edmund Burke still wasn’t done, driving the ball back down inside the Gators’ 5-yard line just before the third quarter ended. That set up their final score in the first play of the fourth quarter, with an extra point tacked on to reach a 28-24 lead in the ongoing back-and-forth battle.
Johnson connected on a nice 37-yard toss a few plays later to junior tight end Lawson Wooten, but on the next play he fumbled the snap on the 15-yard line and EBA took over. They couldn’t get anything through the Gators’ defense, however.
In fact, the Spartans were pushed back to the 11 and forced into a fourth-down punt situation.
That’s when Wooten threw all of his 6-foot-3 frame at the punter and blocked the kick, with the ball skittering back into the Spartan’s end zone where defensive lineman Demarian Maddox smothered it for a fourth Gators TD and a 31-28 advantage. Gatewood kept up the pressure, too, after kicking off for what probably would have been Edmund Burke’s final drive.
Bennett stepped up once more, this time on defense as he stripped the ball from Mobley at his own 40, then recovered it at the 35 to instead give the Gators one last push.
It ended with Bennett making another short, 4-yard run for his fourth touchdown of the night to send the Gators home to Eatonton with a 38-28 victory.
“You know, sometimes it only takes one game to get things rolling. And we’ve got a good program, we’ve got a good culture at the school, and we’ve just been experiencing some things where things weren’t going our way but we still felt good about ourselves,” Ratliff said after the game. “But I know there had to be some doubt. And hopefully, we’re starting to clean up some of that doubt and maybe we’ll be able to finish this season off right.”
The Gators face their first in-region game this Friday night when they host the Piedmont Academy Cougars (1-7) out of Monticello. Their final game of the regular season will come a week later (Nov. 4) when they travel to Sandersville to take on region leader Brentwood (5-3).