CUSSETA — Football may be a game of inches, but it was a game of just 1 inch for the Chattahoochee County Panthers as they notched their first-ever playoff victory, 34-27, over the Seminole County Indians on Friday night.
The Indians came up 1 inch short of a first down on 4th-and-inches from the Chattahoochee 9-yard line with 3:58 to play, and the defensive stand by the Panthers’ defense preserved a win over the same opponent who handed them a 68-8 loss in their first-ever playoff game three years ago. The stand was the second 4th-and-inches stop by the Chattahoochee County defense in the fourth quarter.
“We knew that we had to step up and make that play to win this ballgame,” said senior linebacker Robert Cooper.
“That was the difference right there,” added Panthers coach Josh Kemp, who said that the win was a little sweeter coming against the team that handed them their first miserable playoff experience in 2006.
“They’d embarrassed us,” Kemp said of their first meeting. “It does feel nice to have these seniors who were freshmen then to reverse the roles a little bit (Friday).”
The Panthers will travel to play at Twiggs County in the second round next week.
Chattahoochee County jumped out to a 14-0 lead as the Panthers converted a couple of Seminole fumbles into touchdown drives. The first was a quick 74-yard drive on just four plays. Tyquan Bazemore took a pitch from Cochran on 1st-and-10 and raced down the home sideline for a 54-yard touchdown.
Bazemore was 20 yards from the nearest defender when he crossed the goal line to put the Panthers up 7-0 after Stone Aguirre’s point after just 1:49 into the game.
The second Chattahoochee drive went 61 yards on eight plays, capped off by Cochran’s 11-yard touchdown pass to Dequavious Barbin to make it 14-0 with 4:30 left in the first quarter.
But Seminole County regained its footing and began to make headway on the ground on its next drive. The Indians answered by going 48 yards on nine rushing plays, the final one a 3-yard scoring run by Chris Brown that made it 14-7 with 14.8 seconds left in the first.
The Indians appeared to have seized momentum as they tied it at 14-14 with 4:06 left before the half on Barren Rambo’s 11-yard run, but Chattahoochee answered with a nine-play, 73-yard drive keyed by a 40-yard pass from Cochran to Birdie Jones.
Niko Jones on a 19-yard touchdown with 1:34 left in the half to put Chattahoochee up 21-14 at the break.