HINESVILLE – The Liberty County Panthers defense kept finding ways to send the Southeast Bulloch offense off the field.
The Panthers limited the Yellow Jackets to 2 of 9 on third-down conversions and gutted out a 10-7 win Region 3-AAA Friday night at Donell Woods Stadium/Kirk Warner Field. The loss dropped the Yellow Jackets to 3-3 on the season and 3-2 in the region, while the Panthers improved to 5-1 on the year and 3-1 in the region.
“I thought our defense played unbelievable,” Jackets coach Jared Zito said. “Offensively, the first half, we were not very good.”
Colby Smith’s 79-yard burst up the middle set up SEB’s only score late in the first half. The Jackets got a fourth-down conversion when the Panthers jumped offsides, and three plays later, Jayden Murphy powered in from 2 yards out with 16 seconds remaining in the first half.
But the Panthers took the second half kickoff and marched 77 yards in 15 plays, converting five third downs along the way. The drive, which drained 8 minutes and 12 seconds off the clock, ended with Elijah Brown’s 4-yard touchdown run.
“The difference was that drive,” Zito said. “They took the momentum and wore us down a little bit.”
Brown sparked the Panthers’ next drive, which ended with Aidan Ronk’s 27-yard field goal with 3:48 to play in the game. Brown, quiet for much of the first half, ran 18 times for 90 yards in the second half alone. He finished with 113 yards.
But as the Panthers attempted to run out the clock, Brown fumbled at the SEB 31 with 3:13 left. A holding call set the Yellow Jackets back, and the Panthers defense forced a fourth-down stop to seal the game.
SEB committed eight penalties on offense and also turned the ball over twice, including a fumble at the Liberty 39-yard line to end a threat.
“In the two previous losses we’ve had to Liberty since I’ve been at Southeast, that was the recipe, turnovers and penalties,” Zito said. “You can’t score a lot of points when you turn the ball over or when you have penalties every couple of plays.”
SEB held Liberty to only 45 yards in the first half, but the Panthers limited the Jackets to just 35 yards of offense and two first downs in the second half. Liberty also held the ball for 15:48 over the final two quarters.
The Yellow Jackets will host Groves (0-5 overall, 0-4 region) on October 3.
