It felt great to be a Cedartown Bulldog this past Friday night after the team hosted their first second round game in more than a decade, and came away with a shutout win over North Oconee to continue on in the 2020 Class AAAA playoffs. Honestly, the video above says it all (for the first half, at least.)

(See the Rockmart video for the second half of the football double feature this week.)

Reece Tanner, Harlem Diamond, Jayden Johnson and CJ Washington all got chances to score during a wild first half that included a punt block returned for a touchdown to open the game, and saw the Bulldogs go into the locker room for halftime with a 42-0 lead over the Titans. They added two more touchdowns thanks to Diamond and Johnson in the second half to shut out the Titans without any trouble at all.

Cedartown ultimately put up 463 yards through the entire game only had to punt once in their 56-0 shutout win over North Oconee, who were only able to put up 116 yards for the entire game.

That was entirely thanks to a Bulldogs defense unwilling to give up any territory to North Oconee on a soggy Doc Ayers Field on Friday night, and an offense that utilized their talented cast of characters in the backfield to put up 448 yards on the ground alone throughout the game.

Cedartown heads into the next round against the Bainbridge Bearcats at home this coming Friday night, facing down a 9-3 team that put up back-to-back shutouts in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

The Bearcats took a 43-0 win over Islands in the second round to get here, and travel from the near the Florida line to play Cedartown for the first time in the two program’s history. That’s a nearly five-hour drive Decatur County to Polk County up Highway 27 for the team to travel after they hosted in the second round.

Key takeaways

Head Coach Jamie Abrams is having a great first year for his program. After going 0-2 to start the season against Rockmart on the road and Calhoun at home after having to drop the Carrollton game due to COVID-19 issues, the Bulldogs bounced back under Abrams to go undefeated in region play and win a 7-AAAA title (first region championship since 2001) and made it to the third round for the first time since 2002.

A good deal of the credit for the stellar season has to go to the Bulldogs defense no matter what. They’ve held all their opponents combined for the season to just 97 points, with two shutouts (though for two games, there were forfeits and would have likely added to that total.) Offensively as well, the Bulldogs have proven to some of the best in the state. They’ve put up more than 300 points on the board (not including defensive scores.)

The 9-3 Bearcats will be the toughest opponents yet this season since the opening of the year, when the Bulldogs fell to Rockmart and Calhoun. The Bearcats three losses on the year come about from an opener against Coffee, their next game against Valdosta, and Ware County.

For reference: Valdosta is a 6-A team that’s heading to the quarterfinals, Coffee is a 5A team that beat Starr’s Mill to head to the next round, and Ware County plays Cartersville in the quarterfinals this coming Friday. All three of those teams are State Champion-level squads, and they all three beat Bainbridge early on before the Bearcats cruised to a region title for 2020, going perfect in 1-AAAA.

Cedartown will have to shutdown Bainbridge’s running game early to find success against this squad.