Central falls to Dougherty 44-0 in first game of Bibb County high school football season

Plagued by penalties, difficulty in the trenches and subpar offensive play, the Central Chargers fell to the Dougherty Trojans 44-0 to kick off the Bibb County high school football season Friday afternoon at Wildcat Stadium in Fort Valley.

The Chargers’ loss came in the first game of a triple-header to begin the first-ever Bibb County Gridiron Classic at Fort Valley State University. Head coach Jarrett Laws felt the Chargers had some things to learn after the game, especially with players out.

“I wanted this game to be a learning experience. We had three players suspended for this game. I made a decision to teach them the lesson as soon as I could, and that makes it tougher, but the loss is still on us and we have things to fix,” Laws said. “It’s one to grow on. We’ve had good momentum in the offseason, but when you’ve never had that, you have to keep learning.”

Laws would not name the players, but said they were missing one member each from the offensive line, linebacking core and secondary unit.

One silver lining for the Chargers showed up in the form of junior running back Ej Avant, who showed some elusiveness despite the run game not fully blooming.

“He’s improving, he has the potential to have game-breaking ability,” Laws said. “His deal is he needs to learn to be a little more patient… he’s got to have some moments that help with his consistency. The goal is, by region time, he has some more understanding of continuity back there.”

Dougherty’s offense started the game with an explosive 65-yard touchdown from quarterback David Burgess to receiver Braylen Still on the second play from scrimmage and refused to let up. The offense, while multifaceted, relied heavily on running back Daishon Malone. Jason Armstrong occasionally spelled him in the backfield, and the two halfbacks combined for 111 total yards and three touchdowns. Eugene Young Jr. also contributed on the ground for the Trojans.

Dougherty often had good field position thanks to poor offense and special teams by Central.

“An issue with special teams, penalty wise with us, is that when you’re playing a lot of freshmen and sophomores, situational football is not very relevant to them,” Laws said. “We had to teach them more about lining up in the offseason, now we have to get them to the next step and clean up.”

The Chargers face the ACE Gryphons next week in their first region game of the season.

“They do a great job of mixing calls offensively and he’s very aggressive up front defensively,” Laws said. “We’re going to do a lot of work this week to work on changing the picture that they see, because if they read your offense, you’re in trouble.”

Dougherty’s early explosiveness tells the story

Central put itself into a hole early, allowing two huge plays on the first two Trojans drives. The first gash came on the second play from scrimmage, a 65-yard air strike from Burgess to Still for a tone-setting score.

On Dougherty’s second drive the rushing game got in on the action, as Malone flashed from the line of scrimmage to paydirt on the Trojans’ first play to extend their lead to 14-0.

For most of the first half after from those two explosive plays, though, the Chargers played decent defense. The unit held Dougherty offense scoreless until the end of the quarter and forced a fumble. The offense struggled to get going, as linemen were overwhelmed on rush plays in the trenches and quarterback Justin Releford faltered in a collapsing pocket on most passing plays.

Special teams problems followed Central as well — the Chargers drew flags several times on both their own and the Trojans’ punt plays and also let a snap travel out of the endzone on a punt deep in their own territory, giving Dougherty a safety that made it 16-0 through the end of the first quarter.

The second quarter felt closer thanks to less explosive drives, but the Trojans still drove methodically downfield. Two clean drives gave them a 30-0 lead at the half.

Dougherty maintained control from that point on, stifling the Chargers to snuff out any momentum and tacking on a punt return touchdown in the final quarter. The clock ran for the last portion of the contest until the 44-0 win was in the books.