"Insane" play sends Deerfield-Windsor into state championship

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Joe Whitfield
Staff Correspondent

THOMASVILLE – The Deerfield-Windsor Knights will play for the GIAA Class AAA state championship Thursday night in Macon after what head coach Jake McCraw called an “insane” play to end Friday night’s semi-final game against Brookwood.

With 19 seconds remaining in the game, Brookwood led 21-20, and McCrae called a trick play to try and give the Knights an opportunity for a game-winning field goal, but ended up with a touchdown.

“The play was to get the ball to Boles Middleton who would then flip it to Chance Bacon and hope to get us into field goal range,” said McCrae. “But they both got tackled and the ball got knocked around and our kids made a heads-up play and never gave up blocking on it.”

The play started at about Deerfield-Windsor’s 40-yard line and traveled across midfield to Boles Middleton back to Chance Bacon who then flipped it back to quarterback Lane Sceals who then tossed it to Ethan Johnson who was back at about the 25-yard line. Johnson took the ball down the Deerfield-Windsor sideline and raced 75 yards into the end zone for the touchdown and the winning score.

“The kids never gave up,” said McCrae. “The kids came out and gave us a halftime lead but Brookwood made incredible halftime adjustments. No one deserved to lose this game. That said, I’ve never seen a game finish like that, much less be the beneficiary of it. I’m still not sure how it happened.”

The Knights had led 20-7 at the half, but Brookwood score twice in the second half to take a 21-20 lead and looked as though they had the game in the bag until the final play. The Knights will now take on defending state champion and undefeated John Milledge (13-0) who beat Valwood 49-14 in Friday night’s other semi-final.

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