All good things must come to an end. Newton’s outstanding playoff run ended on Friday after a devastating 43-29 loss to Etowah.

The game was tied at 29 with less than six minutes left to play. The entire game had been a back and forth affair, with Newton seemingly in control for the first 42 minutes of the contest. Up until that point, the story of the game was that neither team had turned the ball over. Unfortunately for Newton, that didn’t last.

The Rams had two turnovers and one turnover on downs in the final 5:21 of the contest and the rest is history, literally. No other Newton team can say they did what this Newton team did, win two playoff games and beat a third-ranked Valdosta team in Valdosta.

As they shook hands with the opposing team, you could see the pain in the players’ eyes. Some of them crying, some trying to comfort their brothers, others remained distraught with a look of displeasure drooling from their faces.

“My boys gave everything they had. They left it on the field, ain’t nothing you can do about it. We made mistakes and they made us pay. That’s what good football teams do. If you make a mistake, you pay. We had ‘em where we wanted ‘em. Tie game, 29-all and we had two turnovers and they made us pay like you’re supposed to,” Terrance Banks, Rams’ head coach, said.

This great run began with the dispatching of Valdosta before seguing to the Rams’ surviving against Central Gwinnett and now a tough loss to Etowah.

Before this season, Banks’ second season as the Rams’ head coach, Newton had never won a state playoff game, ever. Of course there was the 1987 team that went 10-3 winning multiple playoff games, but that’s before the playoffs were statewide. Now that they’ve made history by winning two playoff games and advancing to the playoffs three years in a row Banks has established a tradition of winning.

In his first parents/players meeting after being hired as coach, Banks talked about building a championship program. The three facets he speaks about in terms of having a championship program is graduation, signing day and a state championship.

Banks says the state championship is the least important thing of the three. Still, the team has managed to make it to the playoffs under him each year and they've gotten better in such a short period of time. Building a championship program begins with winning on a regular basis. To have a program like Valdosta’s or Tucker’s you have to be a contender every year.

Newton’s loss is a tough. It’s one of those games where you know you should have won, but it’s also one of those games that builds character and leads to greater success down the road. Which is what you want if you’re a Newton Ram.
The ultimate test for Banks will be, being able to establish this kind of success on a consistent basis.

“This season’s over with. You go back and tell them we accomplished some goals, but we gotta continue to go back to work. We go back to work and we gotta do what we gotta do. It doesn’t stop,” Banks said. “We got underclassmen – we’ve got about seven starters coming back on both sides of the ball right now if everybody does what they’re supposed to do. We just need to hit the weight room and come back strong that’s all you can do. We gonna keep getting to work. Rams rise.”

“I’m going to tell my seniors how much I love them and how much I’m proud of them for taking Newton High School somewhere they never been before. I’m going to tell my underclassmen to look at those guys’ faces and see the agony. I’m going to tell them to take a couple of weeks off, but I’m going to tell them the same thing I always tell them, ‘Championships are not won in August, they’re won January until August.’ They beat us because they lined up and ran us over so we need to find the weight room. We got a brand new one coming in, we need to go live in it if we want to be back.”

The Rams got ran over by Etowah's offensive line and when they did hold up, no one could bring down the Eagles’ big running backs. Newton’s front seven did its best against the Eagles. Their best just wasn’t good enough to stop the Eagles’ strong ground attack.

Etowah won the line of scrimmage on offense, as the Rams got pushed downfield allowing multiple runs for 10 or more yards throughout the contest including a 48-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-two by Etowah quarterback Robbie Knox.

Newton’s defense had been the story of its postseason success, but that wasn’t the case against Etowah. The Eagles couldn’t stop Newton’s potent balanced attack either, but it was the two Rams’ turnovers that cost the team the most.