It’s nice when life provides you a way of getting out your frustrations. Coming off back-to-back region losses the Statesboro Blue Devils were able to beat up on the Groves Rebels Thursday night in Garden City winning 49-14.

“Our starters did a great job of coming out tonight and doing what they were supposed to do,” said coach Matt Dobson. “When you play a team like this you should come out and try and dominate and I think we played to our standard tonight with our starters.”

Coach Dobson took a lot of the blame for last week’s 42-21 loss to Ware County saying he didn’t feel his team was prepared to play. Even though they didn’t get word the game would be played Thursday until earlier this week, the Blue Devils were definitely prepared as they dominated the rebels in every facet of the game passing the ball for 148 yards and rushing the ball for 254 yards for a total amount of 402 yards. Statesboro also scored on offense, defense and special teams.

“It was a nice balance of all three parts of the game,” Dobson said. “The best part of the night is that every kid on our roster played football tonight. Every kid that came and was healthy and eligible played and really played some significant snaps. That’s really fun to be able to reward those guys who work really hard in practice getting our varsity guys ready for games.”

The Blue Devils marched down field on their opening possession throwing the ball successfully unlike last week. They’d cap a seven-play scoring drive with a one-yard M.J. Kimble touchdown run for a 6-0 lead as the 2-point conversion failed.

On their next series Beckham Jarrard hit Todd Easter on a three-yard touchdown pass. The 2-point conversion was good for a 14-0 Statesboro lead. Still in the first quarter Statesboro struck again through the air as Jarrard hit Kevin Sello on a nine-yard slant touchdown pass make it 20-0.

Late in the first special teams got in on the fun as the Blue Devils blocked a punt. Caleb Scroggins scooped and scored from 20-yards away and at the end of the first quarter the Blue Devils led 27-0.

Much of the same on the second quarter as after a couple of nice runs a by Jamon Chavers, Jarrard hit Davis Harrison for a five-yard touchdown pass and a 34-0 lead. The Blue Devil defense came up with the next points of the game. With the Rebels pinned on their own two-yard line quarterback Taff James was thrown down in the end zone by Jammie Chavers for a safety and a 36-0 lead.

They’d tack on one more score as Jamon Chavers scores from 15-yards out as Statesboro took a 43-0 lead. With a running clock the entire second half and the second team primarily in Statesboro was only able to add a 15-yard touchdown run from Jhaden Perkins while Groves added a pair of scores.

The win improves the Blue Devils record to 4-2. Up next they continue their four-game road swing at Evans.