Stratford overwhelms Pinecrest in GHSA Class A private quarterfinals
CUMMING -- For the first time in 12 years, Macon-Bibb County will have a representative in the GHSA semifinals.
Stratford, which won eight independent football championships before rejoining the GHSA last year, becomes the county's first semifinal participant since Westside in 2003, thanks to a dominant 43-15 win over second-seeded Pinecrest on Friday.
The Eagles (9-3) held Pinecrest, ranked sixth in the final Georgia Sports Writers Association Class A poll of the regular season, to 183 rushing yards. The Eagles also had three running backs each go for more than 100 yards, allowing Stratford to control the flow of the game for most of the contest.
"This is a big accomplishment," Stratford's O'Showen Williams said. "We're not just representing Stratford; we're representing Macon, too."
There is one big hurdle separating Stratford from its first trip to the Georgia Dome: Aquinas, a team that is 7-0 against Macon-Bibb County teams the past two seasons. The Irish defeated the Eagles twice this season in Macon, winning their regular-season meeting 35-28 and the Region 7-A championship game 48-28.
This time, the teams will meet in Augusta. Aquinas barely escaped its quarterfinal, prevailing 28-27 over Christian Heritage when Christian Heritage missed a field goal in the closing seconds.
"We played them good for two games and about 2- 1/2 quarters (of the region title game)," Stratford head coach Mark Farriba said. "Obviously, they beat us the last three times we played them. We definitely have our work cut out for us, but any time you can keep playing this time of year, it doesn't matter who it is. We've got to find a way to stop them and give us a chance to win."
In Friday's quarterfinal, Stratford put together an impressive performance against Pinecrest, which won the Region 6-A title by knocking off then-No. 1 Mount Paran Christian to close the regular season.
Pinecrest (10-2) had the ball inside the Stratford 40 just twice. One possession was set up by a long pass in the second quarter, and the other came late in the fourth after the Eagles had the game well in hand. Stratford's defense held Pinecrest to a season scoring low.
Offensively, the combination of Williams, Kasey Sanders and Tyler Jordan dominated. Jordan (112 yards), Sanders (110 yards, three touchdowns) and Williams (106 yards, two touchdowns) led a rushing effort that resulted in a 339-yard performance.
A 47-yard scoring run by Sanders with 3:59 to go in the second quarter and a 1-yard keeper by Sim Patrick with 19 seconds remaining in the first half gave Stratford a 22-7 lead at the break, and Williams' 4-yard run to cap the Eagles' opening drive of the third quarter effectively put the game away.
"I think you go through what you do," Farriba said. "You trust your people, you trust what you're doing, and you've got to go play the game. It was sort of tough sledding early on, but we found a couple of things that worked, and our guys really executed well."
This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 11:20 PM with the headline "Stratford overwhelms Pinecrest in GHSA Class A private quarterfinals ."