Well-rounded debut gives Bleckley upper hand on West Laurens

The contrast was readily apparent between an experienced, veteran team on the visiting side and the young, developing squad still piecing things together on the home one. 

You could see comparable potential in the two local rivals who met for a 26th time to start the 2026 season at The SHU, but one was clearly a great deal closer to it, and some big things likely to come in the very near future, than the other at an earlier stage of its progression. 

Bleckley County, led by a senior quarterback who was in command from start to finish and a defense that bent, but didn’t break, had the better team in Friday’s matchup. West Laurens played decently, but not up to the level of a deep, polished opponent that capitalized when it could to grab the 28-3 victory. 

The Royals’ well-established lineup displayed confidence, consistency and composure throughout, while the Raiders’ performance was comparatively clunky, and a little careless when it came to preventable errors. 

None was unexpected for a group with a high percentage of first-time players getting acclimated to the varsity level, but an opening game against what might be the strongest team on their whole schedule gave those newcomers a much shorter runway than would be ideal. 

“We did some things really good, but we made too many critical mistakes in certain situations that we’re not going to be able to win any games with,” said West Laurens head coach Kip Burdette. “We’ve gotta get better, and we know that.” 

The Raider defense – getting key plays from Jamari Blash, Braden Willis, Tripp Mascaro, Maxx Chafin, J.D. Hogan and Nicholas Hester along the way – came through as hoped with some third-down stops to keep Bleckley in check, and the game close until late, when touchdowns on the Royals’ last two possessions put it away. 

There were few busts or big plays. But BC, working on just 274 total yards, still fought its way down the field, and ground out the points with conversions on all four of its trips to the red zone. 

“I felt like the physicality’s there, but it’s just a bunch of young guys getting their first taste of varsity, and that speed and how the game moves,” Chafin said. “I feel like we’ve got the talent. We’ve just gotta take it day by day, trying to get better.” 

West Laurens’ only shots came on back-to-back possessions late in the second quarter. The Raiders netted a field goal for their only points on the first chance, but ran out of time on the second that was shaping up to potentially get them back within a score before the half. 

They would get no closer than that the rest of the night. 

After allowing some intermittent gains before the half, the Royals offered little room to run inside, or advance on the screens to the perimeter that were a focus of a somewhat effective West Laurens passing attack. 

Outside of double-digit pickups on the ground by Duggan Malone and Justin Blash, and a similar catch-and-run in an impromptu situation by Jace Williams, the gains were minimal, and pretty much nonexistent in the second half as Bleckley began to tighten things down, and hits from defenders Octavius Tate, Jamir Thompson, Landry Nobles, Cody Register, K’Marion McClinton and others got more and more physical. 

Each of the Raiders’ second-half possessions, except for one, ended in a punt. 

“We moved the ball at times really well, but what we’ve gotta do is we’ve gotta punch it in when we get in the red zone,” Burdette said. “We moved it really well in between the 20s, and then got down there and didn’t come up with any points about three times, and you look at that and it’s the difference in the ballgame when they beat us 28-3.”

Bleckley might have done more damage with its ground game than the highly-touted passing attack, which relied mostly situational strikes. 

A 9-for-12 Brody Fleming delivered plenty of them on his patented extended plays, scrambling for a first down after avoiding a sack on a short-lived opening drive that ended in the first of reciprocal punts. 

The senior, off a record-breaking junior season, fired accurate passes for multiple third-down conversions later in the night… to Gage Harris on the early scoring drive, shortly before hitting him from 14 yards on the only passing touchdown later in the first quarter; to Jason McNulty right at the marker for a key move of the chains on the way to a second score late in the half; to Kelvin Sneed for a tiptoe catch in the fourth as they tacked on the first of back-to-back touchdowns that put the lead away. 

But everything ran on a strong rushing foundation that averaged a strong six yards per carry on the alternating attempts of Zyion Love and Kix Foskey, who combined for the last three touchdowns. 

Love, with the lead of 144 yards, scored from five late in the second, then two early in the fourth. 

Foskey, with 41 in support, finished off a closing drive from a similar distance away. 

“No doubt, they’re a good football team,” Burdette said. “Hats off to them.” 

Still putting things together…

The Raiders, in the early going this season, will be mixing and matching in several places to find out which of a number of potential contributors make up their best possible rotation on both sides. 

The offensive group was much more set at this point than the D, where on top of continuing to do some shuffling (particularly up front), they had a few important players out. 

“We were probably light 4-5 people on defense,” Burdette said. 

The Raiders bowed up to force punts on more Bleckley possessions than not, but couldn’t sustain much progress with the ball when they got it back. Penalties were an inhibiting factor on several drives that either stalled, or never got going. 

Their first of the night made it near midfield on a 30-yard gain by Justin Blash, but soon punted after a holding call and another procedure foul on the next series were too much to overcome. 

A second was shaping up nicely on a Malone scramble that aided in reaching Bleckley territory for the first time, but a false start forced the Raiders to abort plans of trying for a fourth-and-short on the return from the quarter. 

Chafin and Co. keyed a quick three-and-out to get it back near the same spot in plus territory thanks to a shanked punt. This time, Hogan kept the ball on a third-down conversion, and Justin Blash carried it to reach the red zone. 

The chance at a game-tying touchdown didn’t pan out, but Malone salvaged three with a 29-yard field goal to make it a 7-3 ballgame. 

The second Bleckley scoring drive immediately followed, as the Royals covered 51 yards on a short field after an ill-fated onside kick attempt. 

West Laurens used the last of its timeouts defensively just before Love’s touchdown to put Bleckley up 14-3, leaving none for what turned into the best-looking drive of the night with only a minute to play before the half. 

What for most would’ve been a cut your losses and go to the half proposition turned into a fast-paced sprint into scoring range. 

Malone used bubble screens to Braylen Robinson and Zeke Floyd, plus a dump-down on a lengthy play to Williams for the biggest gainer, to get just inside the Royals’ 30. 

But the next snap, with only nine seconds left, produced a completion in bounds, and there wasn’t enough time to line up and spike it for one more play. 

Bleckley took the 11-point lead to halftime, and the Raiders a little regret over a major missed opportunity. 

“We’ve gotta get some sevens out of that, and not threes,” Burdette said of both scoring chances. 

But for at least another quarter, it was still shaping up as a classic West Laurens-Bleckley season opener… with the Raiders down, but hanging around on the edge of striking distance in anticipation of a late opening. 

The game-swinging play to spark a comeback chance, down 14-3, never really emerged in the third, though there were two close candidates on key third downs from fairly deep in West Laurens territory. 

After one three-and-out, a Bleckley roughing the kicker penalty offered a free first down, but that led to another punt just after a cross of midfield. 

Later, there was a rare instance of two turnovers in one play, as a Malone pass floated to midfield for a Sneed interception, but he had the ball knocked loose mid-return on a collision with Brayden Baldwin. 

West Laurens took back over, but likewise had to punt again a few plays later, as Marty Beck stuffed a key third-and-five on the first play of the fourth quarter. 

Bleckley wasted little more time in shutting the door as it rattled off a 69-yard scoring drive, buoyed by a 15-yard penalty, a tilting Sneed catch along the home sideline and a second Love touchdown carry.

West Laurens came up empty on a fourth down during its next drive to give it back near midfield with five minutes left, and Love broke loose on a run that nearly scored, if not for another of the night’s multiple touchdown-saving tackles by Jamari Blash. 

The Raider D stiffened to go out fighting, and got the goal-to-go series to a fourth down from the two with about three minutes left, but Foskey survived some low contact to tumble in on the run and set the final at 28-3. 

The Raiders left their debut with a laundry list of things to work on, at the top of it cutting out penalties and improving consistency on offense. 

“We got a couple of breaks in the second half and we didn’t take advantage of them,” Burdette said. “We’ve gotta do better. A false start on a fourth down. Probably could’ve managed a two-minute drill a little bit better. There were so many mistakes that pop off that are things that we’ve survived the last couple years that we’ve gotta learn how to do again. Lot of new faces in different positions, but we’ve gotta get better.” 

The good news: They get an extra week to work on everything before having to worry about their next game, with a bye coming up this Friday before the start of a two-game road trip at Dodge County Sept. 4. 

“That’s going to be real big for us, I feel like,” Chafin said. “We’ve got a bunch of things to work on, communication, executing calls, missed assignments, stuff like that, it just goes back to we’ve got a bunch of young guys, new faces. Once we get going, I feel like it’s a lot to look forward to.”