Third time a charm? Stratford looking for answer against elusive Aquinas
Having to play a team three times in one season in football is rare.
Rarer still is having to play an opponent for the third time after losing to the same team the first two times.
Add the stakes that are involved — the chance to play for a championship next weekend at the Georgia Dome — and the intensity rises to another level for Stratford’s GHSA Class A private school semifinal Friday at Aquinas.
“It’s pretty much crazy,” Stratford running back Tyler Jordan said. “You feel like you know the team all the way, but sometimes they change things during the season.
“We know what they can do, and they know what we can do, so it’s going to be a real good game.”
After winning eight championships in the GISA and its preceding organizations, Stratford (9-3) is a win away from a title game appearance in its second year in the GHSA. But there isn’t as much talk about that as there is about trying to find away to get past Aquinas, a team that quickly has become a rival of sorts.
Friday will mark Aquinas’ eighth game in two seasons against teams from Macon-Bibb County. The Irish are 7-0 in those games, with Stratford the only team to come within a touchdown.
“I’ve lost to them four times in my high school career,” said Stratford running back O’Showen Williams, counting a game Williams played in as a freshman with FPD in 2012. “I’m just ready to play them again. I’m going to give it my all, and I’m pretty sure my teammates are going to give it their all.
“It’s going to be a great atmosphere, win or go home, one step from the Dome. But I don’t want to think about the Dome yet. I want to get them out of the way first.”
Stratford’s regular-season games against Aquinas the past two seasons have been close. Aquinas squeezed out a 28-27 win last year in Augusta, and the Irish prevailed 35-28 on Sept. 18 in Macon.
Aquinas (11-1) was a bit more decisive when the teams met Nov. 6 in Macon for the Region 7-A championship. Riding a 261-yard, three-touchdown performance from sophomore D’Angelo Durham, the Irish pulled away in the second half for a 48-28 victory.
Stopping third-seeded Aquinas is a complicated proposition. Samford-bound quarterback Liam Welch is a dual threat, rushing for 562 yards and 11 touchdowns while passing for 1,742 yards and 16 scores. There’s also running back Chris Gates, injured early in the region championship game, who has 778 yards and 13 touchdowns.
Gates returned to action in the first round of the playoffs to complement Durham, who has 1,105 yards and 15 touchdowns.
“They’re just a very good offensive football team,” Stratford head coach Mark Farriba said. “The quarterback is an outstanding player, a veteran player. They have a wide receiver (George Welch) who is a high-caliber receiver. They have two running backs who, either one of them, are very, very effective.
“Probably the thing for us, the thing that is most difficult is their offensive line. It’s so big and physical. It’s a tough matchup for us because of their size and their strength. You don’t realize this until you play them, but they’re a power football team.”
Still, there’s reason to be optimistic on the Stratford side.
The 10th-seeded Eagles scraped together a 14-7 win at Calvary Day to open the playoffs before putting together a dominant performance last week in a 43-15 win at second-seeded Pinecrest.
Stratford’s running game, which features three backs who have combined for nearly 3,000 of the Eagles’ 3,476 rushing yards this season, was strong against Pinecrest. The Eagles racked up more than 300 yards on the ground last week, while the Eagles’ defense put forth a solid effort for the second straight game.
“From our end, I hope we can still score points, but there’s no question that we’ve got to get them off the field,” Farriba said. “We’ve got to be able to stop them.”
Friday’s playoff capsule
STRATFORD EAGLES
Record: 9-3, first place in Region 7A-A, second overall in Region 7-A; beat Calvary Day 14-7 in first round, beat Pinecrest 43-15.
Seed: 10th.
Opponent: Aquinas, 11-1, Region 7-A champion, seeded third.
Series record/this year’s meetings: Aquinas leads 3-0/Aquinas won 35-28 (Sept. 18) and 48-28 (Nov. 6).
Next up: Prince Avenue Christian or Eagle’s Landing Christian, GHSA Class A private school championship, 10 a.m., Dec. 12 at the Georgia Dome.
Scouting report: According to research done by the Georgia High School Football Historians Association and posted on the Georgia Varsity Sports Vent (www.gavsv.com), Friday’s Stratford-Aquinas meeting is just the 13th time in GHSA history when two teams have met three times in a season. The last time it happened was in 1989, when Brunswick and Glynn Academy met three times — twice in the regular season and again in the region semifinals. Only one Middle Georgia team is on that list: Herschel Walker’s 1978 and 1979 Johnson County teams, which went 2-1 against Savannah Country Day in 1978 and 2-1 against ECI in 1979.
Stratford and Aquinas operate in similar ways offensively. Both teams can put a bunch of points on the board, and both teams are well-disciplined. Stratford has a deeper rushing game, although both teams have racked up more than 3,000 yards on the ground. Aquinas has an edge through the air with a couple of solid receivers and Samford-bound quarterback Liam Welch, although Wisconsin-bound Quintez Cephus gives Stratford some big-play flash. Aquinas also has an edge up front with a bigger offensive line.
Injuries played a role in the teams’ Nov. 6 region championship contest. Chris Gates, Aquinas’ No. 2 rusher, left early with a leg injury, while Stratford was down a couple of defensive starters. Aquinas eventually wore down Stratford’s defense, with D’Angelo Durham recording a season-high 261 yards and three touchdowns as the Irish pulled away in the second half. Gates has played in both of Aquinas’ playoff games, while Stratford’s defense has gotten healthier in the past month.
This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 5:36 PM with the headline "Third time a charm? Stratford looking for answer against elusive Aquinas ."