Just a week after an impressive win over Clarke Central, Heritage handed Loganville a humiliating loss of 35-14, moving to 3-0.
The Heritage Patriots took on the Loganville Red Devils after coming off an improbable win against the Clarke Central Gladiators by a score of 21-14. The Red Devils entered the game after beating Rockdale 30-3 in their last game. The Patriots boasted a 2-0 record entering the game while Loganville came in with a record of 1-0. The Patriots would go on to exit the game 3-0 while handing Loganville a humiliating loss of 35-14.
Heritage was forced to punt on their first possession, but recovered the ball after a muffed punt by the Red Devils. Senior Hakeem Lewis would then score on a 7 yard touchdown run. The quarter ended with that being the only score, but the Patriots offense would explode in the second quarter.
Going into the game, Patriots head coach Chad Frazier said the team needed to “swarm to the football, tackle well, protect the ball, block well, and be sound in the kicking game” in order to win. A third of the way through the second quarter, sophomore Ryan Sutton passed to senior Dominic Craft for a 28 yard touchdown pass. That would be the beginning of the trouble for the Loganville defense.
Later in the quarter senior Quami Stanley ran into the end zone from three yards out to give the Patriots an early 21-0 lead. Heritage would be able to hold this lead until Loganville’s junior running back, Bernard Merriweather, exploded for a 44 yard touchdown run.
“We didn’t want to give up too many big plays but we were able to regroup after this one,” said Patriots defensive end Ryan Watson. Heritage would respond before the quarter ran out with a 47 yard touchdown pass from Sutton to junior Steven Everson. The Patriots took a 28-7 lead into halftime and didn’t look back.
The 3rd quarter finished without a score by either team but each would put one more score on the board before the game ended. During the 4th quarter, Lewis would score one more time on a 26 yard touchdown run to give the Patriots a commanding 35-7 lead. Loganville scored on a late one yard touchdown run to bring the score to 35-14.
The clock would run out before the Red Devils would have any chance of making a comeback. “We came out, played hard, hit them in the mouth, and got after them,” stated defensive line coach Chris Pack about the team’s performance.
“We played as bad as we could on special teams,” stated Loganville head coach Eric Godfree. The Red Devils muffed 2 punts and a kickoff which resulted in seven Heritage points. “We had a pretty lousy mentality and that’s got to improve. We have to find somebody to secure kicks.”
Heritage’s next game will be Sept. 15 at Rockdale. Loganville will take on Madison at home on Sept. 16.
