Mary Persons sees a lot of itself in Washington County

The Mary Persons Bulldogs might as well be holding up a gigantic mirror in front of themselves Friday when they host Washington County.

Like the Bulldogs, the Golden Hawks have been saddled with replacing a heralded senior class, not to mention one of them being all-everything quarterback A.J. Gray, now playing for Georgia Tech.

Mary Persons can relate, to a degree. It entered the season with two returning starters on each side of the ball.

“I think us and WACO are kind of in the same boat. They lost a bunch of good players and have some guys who are inexperienced guys who are playing, and we do, too,” Mary Persons head coach Brian Nelson said. “You’re talking about two programs with a pretty successful history. So we’re pretty similar with where our teams are at.”

If experience is a good teacher, Mary Persons and Washington County are well on their way to being scholars after last week’s season openers.

Mary Persons persevered over rival Jackson 28-21 in double overtime while Washington County lost a 49-42 thriller to Thomson.

The Bulldogs stepped straight into the heat of competition in their opener, overcoming the adversities of a giving up a long offensive touchdown and kickoff return for a score, the latter after scoring a late touchdown to take the lead.

“We got about seven or eight games worth of experience because of everything that happened. There was overtime, turnovers, a kick return, the game going back and forth with momentum swings,” Nelson said. “At the end of the day, win or lose, I was just proud of the way that our guys responded and with their effort.”

As far as moving an offense up and down the field, the Golden Hawks have not appeared to miss a beat. Against Thomson, they piled up 487 yards, but were done in by three costly turnovers.

Quarterback Houston Channell rushed for 193 yards and four touchdowns but was limited by Thomson in the second half to 2 yards and a touchdown. Darius Tucker also rushed for 155 yards.

“I think the quarterback they have now is pretty good. They’ll probably tell you that he’s not A.J., but he’s not that far off from him,” Nelson said. “They have a good running back; they’ll always have a good offensive line and play good defense.

“It’s WACO. They have tradition, and they have history. They’ll come in here playing hard.”

For Mary Persons’ young defense, WACO will present another test, albeit of a different type compared to the wing-T of Jackson that it faced last week.

“You watch that game on tape, and it was a track meet. It’s going to be a different challenge for our guys,” Nelson said. “Last week, it more of a wing-T type stuff. This week, it’ll be their first look at a spread-type offense and some quarterback runs.”

This is somewhat unfamiliar territory for Washington County. It is coming off a regular-season loss for the first time in 21 games, and the past two seasons ended with runner-up finishes in the GHSA Class AAA championship game. It’s that sense of tradition and high expectations that have Nelson expecting a determined team arriving at Dan Pitts Stadium on Friday.

The Golden Hawks have not lost back-to-back regular-season games since 2011. They last started a season 0-2 in 2007, when they started 0-3.

“They’ll give us their best shot,” Nelson said. “I’m not expecting anything less than that.”

This story was originally published September 3, 2015 at 7:25 PM with the headline "Mary Persons sees a lot of itself in Washington County ."