SUNDAY PREP NOTEBOOK: Wild Friday forms playoff picture

SYLVESTER — Sitting in the locker room, Worth County coach Scotty Ward thought his team had been “outhit and outplayed,” by the Monroe Tornadoes.

The Rams trailed, 14-7, and after hearing other scores from around Region 1-AAA he knew he had to find a way to win in order to make the playoffs.

Then his team did just that.

Monroe only allowed more than 12 points in region play once all season (31 to Peach County), but the Rams posted 16 in the second half to pull off the upset win and earn the No. 3 seed.

Sudarien Smith, who caught a 52-yard pass on a reverse in the first half, placed the exclamation point on the win with a 75-yard interception return for a touchdown to secure victory in the final seconds.

“The seniors aren’t ready to go home yet,” Smith said. “That’s all that is. This team doesn’t want to quit yet. We want a state championship.”

While nobody is putting the Rams on the short list of title contenders just yet, they have followed a 1-4 start with a 4-1 finish.

The turnaround came when Worth County changed its offense to a run-oriented attack midseason.

When it was down midgame on Friday, Ward stuck with what got him there.

“You could see when we got the ball in the second half they didn’t look like they did the first half,” Ward said. “We said we are going to do what we do and find a way to get an advantage. We just kept doing what we do and that is all we can do.”

MONROE DEALS WITH DEFEAT: On the flip side of the Worth comeback is a Monroe team that now stumbles into the playoffs as the No. 4 seed and will be forced to play at undefeated Class AAA No. 6 Jackson.

After totaling 210 yards of offense in the first half, the Tornadoes had zero yards of offense, zero first downs and two turnovers on its first four possessions of the second half.

They added 38 yards of offense on a final drive attempt that ended at the Worth 34, but in the end the same offensive struggles that have dogged the Tornadoes in some close victories this season came back to put them in the bottom seed of the region.

“We went in at halftime and tried to do exactly what we were,” coach Charles Truitt said. “They were giving us some things. We just couldn’t get things going.”

Truitt says his team now needs to regroup in time for a difficult first-round matchup.

“Our kids are going to come back and play hard,” Truitt said. “I feel good about it, that our team is going to come out and we are going to work. We will be ready to play on Friday night.”

DOUGHERTY LEFT OUT: After two seasons of improved records under coach Charles Flowers, the Dougherty Trojans fell two wins shy of last year’s total.

They finished 4-6 after beating Perry on Friday night, 34-9.

Dougherty missed the playoffs by one game after making it last season.

Flowers didn’t look at it as a step back.

“No, it’s not that we didn’t take step forward,” he said. “We just didn’t go as far forward as I would have liked.”

Flowers said he was encouraged by the play of underclassmen running backs Rashon Solomon and Jerolde Byrd down the stretch, along with a core group of young lineman, to give hope for next season.

“I am proud of our kids,” Flowers said. “We fought back through a lot of adversity. Things didn’t come out the way we wanted.”

SOUTHLAND DONE: Tim Goodin paused to consider what the difference was in his team’s 35-0 defeat at George Walton in the first round of the GISA Class AAA playoffs on Friday.

He came up with the obvious.

“They were better than we were,” he said.

Goodin’s first season at Southland ended because of more than that, but in the end, it was George Walton’s size the wore down the Raiders in the second half.

Southland only trailed 7-0 at the break, but gave up two quick scores in the third quarter and its running attack couldn’t bring them back.

As an outsider now who has played nearly all of the top teams in Class AAA, Goodin offered up his favorites as Deerfield-Windsor, Tattnall Square, Westfield and George Walton. Southland lost to all four this season.

WESTWOOD ALIVE — BARELY: Westwood entered Friday needing a win against Dawson Street to secure the final playoff seed in Region 2-A.

The Wildcats led 34-14, but let Dawson come back to pull within 34-28 and drive to midfield last in the fourth quarter.

Finally, Andrew Adams picked off his third pass of the game to secure the win and a playoff berth at Thomas Jefferson on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Westwood lost to top teams Terrell Academy and Randolph Southern by a combined three points this season. After hanging on to win this close one even in a sluggish performance, coach Ross Worsham hopes his team has figured out how to finish.

“Even though we didn’t play very well, we did pull it out on the road,” he said. “It gets our foot in the door as far as playoffs go. If we play our best game we can play with anybody….Now we’ve gotten over the hump, with all the close games we have had, if we keep it close against Thomas Jefferson, maybe now we believe we can win.”

ALBANY ENCOURAGEMENT: Coach Felton Williams and the Albany Indians have been on the bad side of many lopsided defeats this season.

On Friday, his team’s ability to turn out a more respectable, 56-31 defeat, left him hopeful for next season.

The optimism particularly comes from freshman Jauron Brown, who returned a kickoff for a touchdown and ran for another score, and classmate Emmanul Byrd, who had a 50-yard touchdown run.

“I saw a lot of (execution), especially from a lot of the young kids,” Williams said. “I am really looking forward to the offseason now after (Friday) night.”

BEARD HONORED: Don Beard and Terrell Academy football go hand in hand. He was head coach of the Eagles while they won state championships in 1994-96. Last season, as the defensive coordinator, he earned yet another ring while head coach Bill Murdock led the way.

During the past two seasons, the lengths Terrell Academy has gone to honor Beard have been impressive, to say the least. Not only did the Dawson school name its field after him at the 2007 season opener, they took even greater steps Friday night to ensure that future generations would realize his impact.

Beard, who retired as the Eagles’ head coach after the 2002 season, was given a shadowbox with various memorabilia from his coaching days at Terrell, as well as a box of letters from former football players, leading the 70-year-old to tear up. A hammer and anvil (noting the times he had to “hammer home” lessons and work ethics to players) also will be put together and be tentatively stationed near the field entrance.

“Words can’t describe how happy I am right now,” Beard said. “This ranks right up there with my daughter being born (Natalie Helms, who presented him the box of former players’ letters).”

DEFENSE SAVES PELHAM: To reach the playoffs for the first time since 2002, Pelham had to stop a rising Randolph-Clay team that had come on late in the season under the direction of first-year coach Daniel McFather.

McFather’s Red Devils battled the Hornets tough in the first half– after all, that’s when all the scoring came in Pelham’s 14-13 win — but had a chance to take a lead just before halftime that would’ve, as it turned out, been the game-winning score.

As Pelham coach Jim Morrell tells it: “We went ahead, 14-7, late in the second quarter and then they drove all the way down and scored with less than a minute left. But … they missed the extra point, so it left us with a one-point lead that ended up being what decided it.”

Well, almost. It actually ended up being the Pelham defense.

After Randolph-Clay’s score, Pelham decided to try and make something happen on offense with less than 45 seconds to play. That’s when Hornets QB Caleb Morrell tossed an interception to a Randolph-Clay DB, who took it all the way down inside the Pelham 10 and was one move away from scoring.

That is, until he was caught from behind, brought down at the five and the 14-13 lead was preserved.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Morrell said. “There was less five seconds left and one of my guys just drug him down from behind at the five. Saved a touchdown. And ended up saving the game.”

— Scott Chancey and Danny Aller contributed to this report