Prep Football: East Coweta falls to Whitewater 20-13 in Thursday scrimmage
By DOUG GORMAN
dgorman@newnan.com
FAYETTEVILLE — The best thing about Thursday night’s scrimmage between the East Coweta Indians and the Whitewater Wildcats is the outcome doesn’t count in the record.
That’s probably why East Coweta head coach Clint Wade isn’t too bothered by the 20-13 loss to the Wildcats.
“We ran up against a good team and we really needed to be up against that,” Wade said. “Hopefully, the film can be good enough and we will be able to evaluate it.”
(To view photos from this scrimmage, please visit http://photos.times-herald.com/mycapture and click on Sports / Football for the Photo Gallery.)
East Coweta put the ball in the end zone once in the first quarter and then late in the final period for its only two scores of the game.
Whitewater’s Austin Beard booted field goals of 31 and 50 yards for the only Wildcat scores of the first half.
Beard split the uprights on the first series of the game to give the Wildcats a 3-0 lead, but East Coweta took its only lead of the game midway in the second quarter when new quarterback Bryce Gemmel called his own number, sneaking the ball in from the 1.
The touchdown was set up by long punt return by Nigel Gay and a face mask penalty later in the series. Weylin Orr also had runs of 13 and 8 yards during the drive.
Beard closed out the first half when he boomed his 50-yard field goal for the Wildcats to cut the lead to 7-6 at the half.
Tristan Mann helped pace the Indians' defense during the first half with two sacks.
Whitewater added two third quarter touchdowns on a 12-yard run by Kendall Conley and a 16-yard scamper by Christian Wofford.
With the JV units in for both teams during the fourth quarter Micheal Taggert added the final touchdown of the night for East Coweta on a 56-yard run. The 2-point conversion attempt failed.
With less than two minutes to go in the contest, Malik Jackson had a sack and McKenzie Martin came up with an interception, but the Indians were unable to convert on the turnover as time ran out.
After losing 32 seniors to graduation, Wade knows their are several things his team has to work on.”
It’s a process,” he said. “No one got hurt and we are thankful for that. We just need to head in a positive direction and that’s what we are looking for.”
Wade was especially pleased with the way his JV unit played at the end of the game.
Quarterback Jay Bergstrom ran the offense and the long run by Taggert and the interception by Martin highlighted the fourth quarter.
“We have some eager beavers out there,” he said.
