The Greene County football team lost its first game of the season to Aquinas last Friday in a close 14-10 dogfight.
With the loss, the Tigers are still in contention for the top spot in the region, but they were unable to clinch that last week. After trailing 7-0 at halftime, the Tigers scored 10 points in the second half but gave up a late, fourth-quarter touchdown to the Fighting Irish.
Head coach Terrance Banks told the Lake Oconee News that he believes the team didn’t play up to their potential, and lost the game more than Aquinas won it.
“We didn’t do the things we expected to do,” Banks said. “We have a firm belief that when we lose a game, it’s because of the things we didn’t do, and in that game it was us. We have to fix the mistakes that made us lose the game going forward. Credit to Aquinas, but they didn’t do anything special or unexpected. We made some unforced errors, and they took advantage of those to come out with the victory.”
In a back-and-forth contest, Banks understood the importance of momentum-swinging plays and acknowledged that the Tigers made too many mistakes to give the team that edge.
“We didn’t do the little things, and we understand it’s hard to win a game, in general,” Banks said. “It’s hard to win a game when you have an interception and a fumble on your side of the field, and when you have a couple mistimed snaps and find yourself in long second and third down situations. That wasn’t on Aquinas, that was on Greene County, so those are some of the things we have to take care of.”
Even though the offense struggled at times, Greene County’s defense continued to prove why it is one of the best in Class A Division II.
Heading into the contest, the Fighting Irish offense was averaging almost 30 points per game, but the Tigers held them to only 14 points, and some of that was facilitated by Aquinas starting drives with good field position.
The Tigers’ defense even forced the Fighting Irish to turn the ball over, but they were unable to capitalize. Banks recognized a few standouts and stressed that they will continue to play to this level if they want to have success in the coming weeks.
“The defense has played well all year. That’s our strong suit, and we have to take advantage of that by not trying to put them in bad situations and allow them to help the offense out,” Banks said. “The usual suspects like Steve Miller and Kevin Wynn played well. Chris Lowe had an interception while Demond Copeland had a couple of sacks, so I think those things were helpful, and we will need more of that going forward.”
Looking ahead, Greene County will host Washington-Wilkes in the last regular season game this Friday. The winner will claim the top spot in Region 8-A while the loser is at risk of falling to third place.