Sweet Water pummels Lamar County
SWEET WATER – Sweet Water High School employed its typical MO against Lamar County Friday night: score early and often.
SWHS roared to a 21-0 first quarter lead on its way to a 55-20 win that sends the Bulldogs to a Class 2A semi-final battle with Washington County next week. The winner of next Friday’s game will play for the state championship Dec. 7 in Auburn.
“We’ve just got to show up and play,” Sweet Water head coach Stacy Luker said of the upcoming Washington County game, a rematch of the Oct. 12 battle in which Sweet Water prevailed 20-6. “We know we will be playing for a chance to go to the championship game. Washington County is obviously a great team or we wouldn’t be facing them again.”
In the quarterfinal battle with Lamar County Friday, Sweet Water linebacker Tra Pritchett put the Bulldogs in scoring position on the third play of the game when he picked off a tipped LCHS pass at the visiting Bulldogs’ 32. The home-standing Bulldogs quickly cashed in, as Deion Watters scored from eight yards out with 9:21 remaining in the first. Taylor Wilson added the extra point.
After a Lamar punt, Sweet Water went to work again and hit paydirt on a seven-yard keeper by quarterback Brett Davis with 6:59 left in the first. Wilson again added the PAT, and soon thereafter the ‘Dawgs extended the lead to 21-0 when Jakoby Aldridge sprinted 19 yards for the score. The big play in the 66-yard drive was a 29-yard run by Jamal White to the Lamar County 37.
As the second period opened – on the first play, to be exact – Lamar County quarterback Dallas Cockerham hit Timothy Harton for 50 yards to the Sweet Water 11, and Cockerham then connected with Alex Wheeler for the score that cut the SWHS lead to 21-7.
Any momentum the score may have given the visiting Bulldogs quickly disappeared, though, as Daniel Sewell returned the ensuing kickoff 78 yards to the LCHS 4. On the next play, Demarcus Gamble punched it in, and Wilson’s boot expanded the margin to 21 once again.
Sweet Water then kicked it into high gear – scoring on a 75-yard run by Aldridge, a two-yard run by Gamble that was set up by a Jarvis Lewis interception, and a 28-yard run by Aldridge that capped a 91-yard drive just before the half ended.
The Bulldogs used a methodical drive early in the third to chew up the clock, and increased the lead to 55-7 on Desmond Retic’s two-yard run before Lamar County added two late touchdowns for the 55-20 final score.
“We’re playing well,” said Luker. “We are who we are, and we’re not going to try to do anything different. But we’ve still got to get better.”
With the victory, Sweet Water improves to 11-2 on the year, while Lamar County ended 9-4.
Next Friday’s semi-final match-up with Washington County is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Nolan Atkins Field in Sweet Water.