By Steve Carter
TIFTON — After capturing the Region 1-AAAAA football title Friday night with a triple-overtime 38-35 victory over the Colquitt County Packers, the Tift County Blue Devils will open play in the Class AAAAA state playoffs at 8 p.m. Friday at home against the East Coweta Indians.
East Coweta will enter the game as the No. 4 seed out of Region 4-AAAAA, while Tift will be the top seed out of Region 1.
It was originally reported Friday night by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Tift would play Mundy’s Mill, but East Coweta’s 17-14 loss against Newnan made the Indians the No. 4 seed.
Mundy’s Mill will be the No. 3 seed. Newnan won the region title and Hiram will go in as the second seed out of 4-AAAAA.
Region 1-AAAAA’s final representatives were to be known after presstime Saturday. It is certain Tift is the top seed, while Warner Robins is the second seed. That means Warner Robins will host Mundy’s Mill this weekend.
The deciding factor was Saturday’s Coffee High-Houston County contest. If Coffee won, the Trojans would be the third seed, while Houston will be fourth. A Houston win would put them as the third seed and would put defending two-time state champion Lowndes in as the fourth seed. Coffee would be eliminated because Lowndes defeated them 7-0 during the regular season.
Newnan will host the eventual 1-AAAAA No. 4 seed, while Hiram will host the No. 3 seed out of the league.
East Coweta is coached by Danny Cronic, who has been the Indians’ chief since 1990. During Cronic’s 17 years at East Coweta, the Indians have only missed postseason play twice.
Cronic’s overall record at East Coweta is 131-57. The Indians’ best season during Cronic’s tenure was in 2000 when East Coweta went 12-1, losing 31-10 to Parkview in the state quarterfinals.
“Coach Danny Cronic has been very successful there,” Tift head coach Jay Walls said of his counterpart. “They have had a tradition of being in the playoffs and they have a lot of experience.”
While his team will be the favorite after going 9-1 in the regular season, Walls said he is wary of the Indians.
“There are 32 teams left and the field is wide open,” Walls said. “Hopefully we will have an advantage by playing at home, but we have still got to play good.”
After conferring with Cronic during Friday night and Saturday morning, Walls met with the East Coweta coach and exchanged game tapes. That did not leave much time for the head coach to celebrate Tift’s first region title in 23 years.
“We didn’t do much celebrating,” said Walls of what he described as “one of the biggest wins” of his coaching career.
The Devil head coach was still proud of his team’s effort. Tift was down 14-0 early in the first quarter and came back to tie the game. The Devils then fell down 21-14 with 3:14 left in the game on a 60-yard touchdown pass from Channing Hudson to Orion Ponder.
However Tift did not falter as the Devils drove 60 yards to tie the score with 23.7 seconds left on a Sean Baxley-to-Jared Davis 11-yard touchdown pass.
With the game still tied after two overtime periods, Colquitt went for it on fourth-and-goal from the two. Ponder appeared to be on his way to scoring a go-ahead touchdown around the left end on a run, but Tift’s Jay Gaskins appeared out of nowhere to keep him out of the endzone.
That play set up Charlie Edwards on a 22-yard field goal to win the game for Tift.
“Early on they had the momentum and we were going three downs and punting,” said Walls. “But we didn’t get rattled and we got back in it. We played better in the second half and that continued into the overtime.”
Advanced tickets will be on sale at the high school office beginning Tuesday. Reserved seat tickets will be $12 apiece while general admission for both adults and students will be $8 apiece. Those who have reserved seats can guarantee their same seat with ticket purchases Tuesday through Thursday. Reserved seats will be available for the entire public Friday morning.
The office will be open for tickets from 8:30 a.m.-noon and from 1-6 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, from 8:30 a.m.-noon and from 1-4 p.m. Thursday and from 8:30 a.m.-noon on Friday.
There will be no reserved seat tickets sold at the stadium Friday night.
Also, the Tift County Touchdown Club will meet Monday at 7 p.m. to review Colquitt County game film with Walls.
