By Steve Carter
TIFTON — The East Coweta Indians enter the state football playoffs as the No. 4 seed from Region 4-AAAAA. They are pitted against the Tift County Blue Devils, the 1-AAAAA champions, in a first-round matchup at 8 tonight at Brodie Field.
Last year, the Devils were in a similar situation.
Tift entered the state playoffs as the No. 4 team from 1-AAAAA and had to face the Stephenson Jaguars, the 2-AAAAA champions. Stephenson featured a number of players that ended up signing scholarships with Division I universities, but the Jaguars barely escaped with a 6-3 win over Tift.
Blue Devil head coach Jay Walls remembers last year well as he has prepared his team for the East Coweta encounter.
“We have pointed out that Stephenson was No. 1 in their region and one of the top five teams in the state, and no one gave us a chance,” said Walls. “But we just about pulled it off.
“I think it was because Stephenson probably took us lightly last year. If we do that (against East Coweta), it could be a long night.”
East Coweta coach Danny Cronic does not feel like his team will be overlooked by the Devils. His main concern is the health of his squad.
“We have had some injury problems to some pretty important people,” said Cronic in a telephone interview Thursday. “It’s hard to get over that.”
The main injury is to senior offensive lineman Johnnie Blankenship.
“He went down with an ankle before the Hiram game (three weeks ago),” said Cronic. “Ankles are hard to get over. You lose a half step, and it hurts an offensive lineman.”
The coach brought out Blankenship’s role in the East Coweta offense when he noted that even though running back Tim McGill has put up 1,519 yards on the ground, “He wouldn’t have gotten that without the work of Johnnie Blankenship and the rest of the offensive line.”
Tift also has injury problems, including a knee injury to starting defensive back Jay Gaskins. Gaskins suffered a strained MCL in practice this week and will miss Friday’s contest.
Besides the injuries, the Indians have had a up-and-down week at practice, Cronic noted.
“We struggled some Monday, we were a little better Tuesday, but it poured here all day yesterday, and we had to practice in the gym,” said Cronic. “But I don’t think that should have a big effect this time of the year with as many practices as we have gone through.”
Even with all of that, East Coweta is “excited” about the trip to Tifton, Cronic said.
“Tift is a good football team. They are extremely fast and quick,” said Cronic.
“They get after it and hit you on defense and on offense they have a great running back (Kaream Hess) and a great receiver in (Israel) Troupe. But the guy I have been really impressed with is their quarterback. (Sean Baxley) is a good, solid player that is very fundamentally sound.”
Hess has rushed for 1,003 yards on 197 carries. He has also caught 30 passes for 267 yards.
Troupe has 43 catches for 433 yards. He has also rushed 15 times for 105 yards, returned five kickoffs for 109 yards and 11 punts for 102 yards. He has averaged 10.1 yards every time he has touched the ball this season.
Baxley is 128-for-201 passing for 1,197 yards. He has completed 63.7 percent of his passes and has thrown 11 touchdowns passes and has been intercepted eight times.
Along the offensive line for the Devils are Zach Allen, Anthony Bryant, Thom Roberson, Almarkus Williams and Mark Buhler.
Josh Abbott leads the Devils in tackles with 85. Jeffery Searcy is second with 76, even though he has only played in nine games.
“They have some real good athletes on both sides of the ball,” said Cronic. “It is going to be sure enough hard to stay with them, but I hope we can surprise ourselves.”
NOTE: The last time Cronic coached against Tift County was in 1983 when he led his LaGrange Granger team to the state championship contest against the Devils. Tift ended up winning that contest 59-6 for the Devils’ only state title.
“That one was a long time ago,” Cronic said. “Our team played over their head all year. We only played like 18 people, and we had a couple of injuries going into that game.
(On the other hand), Tift came in sky-high and was a very gifted team.”
