Running backs T.J. Herron and Josh Beautista led the way on the ground again. Herron rushed for 78 yards and a pair of touchdowns and Beautista rushed for 108 yards with a 39-yard touchdown.
Allatoona scored all its points in the first half. Facing the large deficit, Paulding County elected to have a running clock over the final 24 minutes of play.
“(The Patriots) made some adjustments (at halftime),” Buccaneers coach Gary Varner said. “I think we didn’t do a good job adjusting to them so I give a hats off to them for playing a lot better defense in the second half. (They) kept us scoreless.”
Paulding County head coach Scott Hamilton
didn’t see the scoreless half as a credit to his team, but to Varner’s coaching quality.
“Coach Varner is running a quality program over there and I give a lot of respect to him,” Hamilton said. “He didn’t try to embarrass us or our kids. Obviously they’re way ahead of us as a program and they could have if they really wanted to.”
In the second half, Varner turned to his backups allowing the second unit to gain some needed experience.
Quarterback Connor Larson completed two passes for 40 yards and the running game was in clock-running mode.
The biggest improvement from last Friday’s game for Allatoona came in the form of discipline.
Against Woodland-Bartow, Allatoona finished the game with 17 penalties for 130 yards. Friday, the Buccaneers were called for only four penalties for 60 yards. It was an improvement but Varner said he still sees room for improvement.
“We talked about what has to be done,” Varner said. “We still had a few too many (penalties), but we worked hard to try to minimize that.”
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HEY! No need for them to embarrass the kids...the Patriots coach can sufficiently embarrass his team by granting interviews like this to reporters for everyone in the community to read! Way to rally your team coach! Way to recruit & retain sponsors! You should be ashamed of yourself!
The team has potential. This coaching staff is a joke!