In twin Thursday night semifinal contests, Thomas County Central and Gainesville each won their games in dominant fashion and will now face each other in next week’s GHSA Class 5A state championship in Atlanta.
At Thomas County Central, the Yellow Jackets battled a determined Roswell Hornets team that struck for an early 7-0 lead just two plays into the game. They traded touchdowns with the home team for the rest of the first half, and the two teams headed to the locker room at the half tied at 21-21.
The Yellow Jackets got the ball to start the second half and scored first to go up 28-21. After Roswell failed to answer, TCC scored twice to go up 42-21. At that point, you could feel head coach Justin Rogers’ Yellow Jackets start to pull away.
Both teams scored once more to make the final 49-28.
Thomas County Central running back Christian “Deuce” Lawrence had four touchdowns rushing to lead the TCC offense.
Gainesville rolls over Rome 37-6 in 5A semifinal
At Rome’s Barron Stadium, the visiting Gainesville Red Elephants jumped out to a 14-0 lead at the end of the first quarter and just kept pouring it on with 10 more points in the second quarter to take a 24-0 lead into the locker room at halftime.
The Rome Wolves came out in the third quarter and mustered their first points of the night with a field goal to cut the Red Elephants’ lead to 24-3, but Gainesville immediately regained control by answering with another touchdown to take a commanding 30-3 lead.
If that wasn’t the touchdown that sealed the deal, the next one certainly did. With three minutes still remaining in the third quarter, Gainesville’s Dwight Lewis took a handoff from quarterback Kharim Hughley and burst through a gaping hole in the Rome defense for a 56-yard touchdown to make it a rout at 37-3.
Rome added a field goal to make the final score 37-6.
After battling through what looked to be a 39-player suspension from their part in a bench-clearing brawl at Brunswick just weeks ago in the 5A state playoffs, Gainesville decided to fight.
They received a court injunction against the GHSA that stayed the suspension. Just a few hours later, GHSA Executive Director Dr. Tim Scott announced that the GHSA would postpone the scheduled quarterfinal contest between Gainesville and Hughes.
The GHSA ultimately relented and allowed all but four of the suspended players to return, and that seemed to spark a fire under Gainesville, as the Red Elephants soundly defeated the favored and unbeaten Hughes team 40-32 in a game that really wasn’t as close as the final score might indicate.
Afterward, the GHSA announced that both semifinal contests would take place on Dec. 11, prior to the week of the GHSA state championships set to take place in Atlanta on Dec. 15-17.
The GHSA swapped the dates and kickoff times for the Class 5A and 6A state title games, giving the two 5A teams an extra day to prepare for the state championship game. The Gainesville-Thomas County Central Class 5A state title game will now be played on Dec. 17 and will be the final game of the three-day state finals series.
Gainesville enters the game with a 12-2 overall record, while Thomas County Central comes in undefeated at 14-0.
