Veterans eyes upset of Thomson

Despite finishing the regular season with a losing record, the Veterans Warhawks eked their way into the GHSA Class AAAA playoffs as the fourth seed from Region 2-AAAA after Howard lost to Baldwin 20-13 on Friday.

The Warhawks (4-6 overall) finished 3-3 in region play after their 41-35 loss to Upson-Lee in double-overtime Friday and will face Thomson (9-1) on Friday. The Bulldogs won the Region 3-AAAA title.

Veterans head coach David Bruce wasn't happy about the loss to Upson-Lee. But then he heard his team still made the playoffs because of Howard's loss.

"After Friday night, I'm not very happy that we got beat and not in a very good frame of mind, and then I find out we, more or less, backed into the playoffs when Howard lost," Bruce said. "The more I thought about it, thinking, 'Wow, this is a great opportunity. We get another week, and maybe we can get it right this week.' "

The Warhawks will be looking to correct the mistakes which have bothered them during a three-game losing streak. After beating Baldwin, West Laurens and Perry to open region play, Veterans struggled down the stretch in losses against Mary Persons, Howard and Upson-Lee.

Bruce said his team's biggest struggle has been consistency.

"We're not executing play-in and play-out," he said. "Too many mistakes, not taking care of the ball as well as we should."

Defensively, allowing big plays has been a major concern for Bruce in recent weeks. After allowing seven points in each of the first three region games, the Warhawks allowed scoring outputs of 24, 36 and 41 the past three weeks.

"You can't beat people giving up big plays," Bruce said. "The last two weeks, we've just given up a ton of big plays. That will beat you every time."

And limiting the big plays will be the key to pulling off an upset against Thomson, according to Bruce. The Bulldogs enter with only one loss on the season, a 26-20 defeat at the hands of Burke County on Oct. 2. In order to correct some of the mistakes of recent weeks, Bruce said his team will simply "just keep working at it.

"You keep working fundamentals, you keep working blocking, you keep working your tackling drills, and you just try to improve on it," Bruce said. "It doesn't matter if it's (the playoffs) or not."

And tackling will be a key in order to stop a Thomson offense who prefers the run. Bruce called the Bulldogs a "real physical" yet "very athletic" team, especially defensively where he said they swarm to the ballcarrier.

"That's the thing that stands out to me on both sides of the ball about them," Bruce said. "A lot of it is just the athleticism. They're very athletic and just play good, hard-nosed football."

But Bruce said he does not believe his team will have problems dealing with Thomson's physical style of play. Effort will be the difference in whether the Warhawks pull off the upset, according to Bruce.

"I feel like we match up. If we go out there and play like we're capable of, I feel like we match up just fine," he said. "But we can't go out there and give the kind of effort we've given the past few weeks. That's not going to be enough. That's not going to get us what we're looking for."

This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 9:36 PM with the headline "Veterans eyes upset of Thomson ."