Georgetown muscles its way past Manning to advance to second round
Manning High School picked off Georgetown quarterback Tyler McAlister on the first series of Friday’s 3A football state playoff opener at Ramsey Stadium.
The Monarchs then fumbled it right back on their first play.
It was that kind of night for MHS as the offense, and specifically the passing game, never quite got on track. Add in stellar performances by the Georgetown defense and rushing attack and it all combined to spell the end of the season for Manning in a 26-14 loss.
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs survived to see another game.
“They have a lot of athletes over there and we kind of hung in,” Georgetown coach Ken Cribb said. “We fought hard and our defense played really well. We gave up one cheap one on special teams. They got us on a punt return, but other than that our defense held them out to kind of desperation time there at the end when we were subbing some people. So I was real proud of our defense and they played real well against some real good athletes they have over there. Offensively, we just kind of grinded it out and hit some bigger plays when we had to. It’s good to see another day.”
The Monarchs finish with a 7-4 record while GHS improves to 7-4 and will travel to Brookland-Cayce, a 42-7 winner over Battery Creek, next week for the second round.
“We fumbled the first play of the game and that kind of got us off-kilter a little bit,” first-year MHS head coach Keith West said. “They did a great job defensively. They had a great game plan for us. We moved the ball at times, but then they stopped us. We just could not get over the hump tonight.
“And they did a great job offensively, too.”
Georgetown won the battle at the line of scrimmage for much of the night, finishing with 235 yards rushing on 47 carries and three touchdowns. Tony Lara led the charge with 115 yards on 17 carries and one score – a 10-yard run on the drive that followed the Monarchs’ initial turnover.
Manning, meanwhile, never got its rushing or passing attack going. The Monarchs had just three first downs in the first half and less than 75 yards of offense -- with none of it coming through the air. MHS quarterback Jalen White was 0-for-5 with an interception in the first 24 minutes and didn’t complete a pass until the third quarter.
He finished 4-for-19 for 63 yards, with 53 of those coming in the fourth quarter with Manning trailing by three scores and time winding down. The Monarchs finished with 118 yards on the ground, including 76 from Alex Coleman.
“We’ve made changes all year and the secondary has been a work in progress, but the last couple weeks they’ve really stepped up and played a lot better,” Cribb said. “Really proud of the way the defense played against a group of good athletes. They stepped up, and they’ve done that pretty much all year.”
Still, despite the tough sledding on offense, the Monarchs held the lead at one point in the second quarter. Trailing 6-0, David Fulton received a punt, got a key block from Keilah Dupree and raced up the middle for a 61-yard return for a score as MHS took a 7-6 lead.
It was short-lived though as the Bulldogs marched down the field on their ensuing drive that was punctuated by two long runs -- a 30-yard carry by Lara and a 22-yard TD run by Fred Taylor. Taylor actually fumbled the ball on the option pitch, but had it bounce right back to him as he took off along the right side to put GHS up 12-7.
“Once they got the lead on us again, we were just fighting an uphill battle all night,” West said. “I thought we had some good runs to start the second half, but we started in bad field position. We got a couple first downs, but they got us behind the chains one time and we just couldn’t recover after that.”
Penalties were another issue as the Monarchs were assessed 10 during the game, three of the 15-yard variety, including one that was added on to the end of a good Georgetown punt return. That eventually led to another touchdown, this time through the air as McAlister found Deakidd Anderson for a 10-yard strike and a 20-7 GHS advantage.
Georgetown added an 8-yard run in the fourth from Shammond Holmes before the Monarchs finally broke through on their last possession with a 3-yard scamper into the end zone from White.
“We made progress this year,” West said of his inaugural season in Manning. “I was hoping we could win this and get into the second round, but we’ve still got some work to do. Our seniors did a great job this year and our coaches did a great job getting us in the position that we were in.
“We’ve just got to keep moving forward and keep getting better.”
Georgetown, meanwhile, was happy to get this first road win out of the way.
“It’s big. We’ve just got a real simple goal. We just want to practice Monday,” Cribb said. “That’s been our goal all week and hopefully we got that and we’ll get one more and we’ll go back to work Monday and work hard and see what happens.”
To continue, the Bulldogs will have to get past the Bearcats – and star defensive end Octavious Pringle – next week in another road contest.
“I know they’re pretty good. We played them last in the playoffs and we beat them in the second round,” Cribb said of Brookland-Cayce. “They’ve got a real good defensive end, a Shrine Bowler, probably the best defensive end in the state if I’m not mistaken and it’s going to be tough.
“We’re just going to try to put together a good game plan and try to execute it.”
The Sun News contributed to this report.
This story was originally published November 19, 2016 at 12:38 AM with the headline "Georgetown muscles its way past Manning to advance to second round."