FOOTBALL: Dublin overcomes test at Dodge to finish 10-0, clinch region title

EASTMAN – Roger Holmes tends to get straight to the point, and had just a few short words to sum up the result Friday night as his team gathered ’round after defeating Dodge County 50-33 to earn its 10th win, and clinch the region 2-High A title. 

“I ain’t got nothing to say, except… we’re 10-0, and region champs,” the Dublin head coach exclaimed, as another round of hooting, hollering and bouncing up and down broke out among the buoyant set of players. 

There was a definite sense of finished business on the visiting half of Coach John M. Peacock Field after the Irish made a resounding statement to close out a game – and perfect regular season – that both remained in serious question until late in the third quarter. 

Five second-half touchdowns, just two of them answered by Dodge County, helped the state’s No. 2 ranked team turn a two-score deficit into a commanding lead by Friday’s final horn, in a convincing win that doubles down on its declarations of being a team to be reckoned with in the upcoming state playoffs. 

The Irish, who are listed just behind an also 10-0 Faytte County as the second-best public school in the GHSA’s Post Season Ratings that determine seeding, are now all but guaranteed to play their entire half of the tournament in the Shamrock Bowl. 

This will go down as the fourth Dublin football team under Holmes to finish its regular season with a 10-0 region record and win the region crown, though none since the state champions of 2006 – not even the ’19 team that went on to win it all after tripping up in its week 10 finale – has accomplished the difficult feat, made even more noteworthy by this year’s nine-game region gauntlet rivaled only by that of Holmes’ first team to do it in 2002 against an eight-game region schedule that included wins over traditional heavyweight Mary Persons, and two ranked foes in Peach County and Northeast. 

“Obviously, you’ve gotta be extremely proud of that,” Holmes said of the finish. “This senior class, nobody can ever do any better in a regular season than what they’ve done.” 

The Irish took the best shot of Dodge County, and still put up 50 points, in perhaps the most impressive facet of the performance that didn’t get off to the best start. 

Dublin’s first half was marked by some highly uncharacteristic fumbles, illegal motion penalties and turnovers that gave it virtually no momentum to work with. 

The Indians, doing what few teams have been able to this year, had Irish progress hemmed up for about a quarter and a half, and the Dublin defense scrambling a bit as they aired the football out and scored three first-half touchdowns to assert control through halftime. 

Kain Mincey threw 12 completions for 262 yards. Dodge was missing perimeter speedster Jerimiah Burns, who was out for the game with an injury, but J.J. Dean stepped up with four catches for 147, including big ones to both set up and score a touchdown as the Indians took a 18-15 lead into the half. 

That edge grew to 10 quickly as Duke Johnson broke loose for his third rushing touchdown on their first possession of the third quarter. But it wouldn’t be big enough. Dublin outscored the Indians 35-15 in the final two quarters. 

“My hat’s off to Dodge,” Holmes said. “They came to play tonight. They got after us pretty good.” 

The mutual respect was echoed on the home side of Memorial Stadium. 

“They were a really good football team,” said Dodge County head coach Phillip Brown, who commended his players on their performance in a postseason-quality battle, and a resurgence from a disappointing loss at Northeast the week before. 

“I’m proud of our kids. They fought really hard, and that’s going to pay off really big for us going into the playoffs, having that fight.” 

The game officially turned for the Irish when the lead finally changed back into their hands halfway through the third quarter. 

But the true momentum swing came after Dodge widened its advantage to two scores for the first time just a few minutes before the half. 

The Indians, up by five, used a quasi-fake punt to convert a fourth down in Dublin territory with a 28-yard pass completion from punter Brandon Way to Ralph Howard, and handed to Duke for a 17-yard touchdown run on the next play to go in front 18-7. Dodge, with a catty-cornered snap on the “swinging gate” two-point try that was batted down before it got anywhere by Dublin’s “Q” Lovett, failed for a third time to add extra points. 

The Irish, now beginning to sense an upset brewing, reeled off their gotta-have-it scoring drive in fairly short order. A Willie Batts run, and a Dodge unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, moved them swiftly inside the 15 for a series of plays to get to the doorstep. 

A substitution penalty backed Dublin’s third-and-goal from the 1 out to the six, but the added yardage was no issue for Batts on his downhill cut to score. Azontae Walker sprinted to the right edge for the two-point conversion, and it was a three-point game with 1:26 to go before intermission. 

After Jalen Dardy’s sack of Mincey, Dodge was content to take things to the half, with the third-quarter kick scheduled to come its way. 

The Indians got the ball and came out firing again. Though a motion penalty negated a long catch-and-run for Way, Duke broke free from a scrum along the sideline later in the series, and dashed 83 yards to score and put the pressure back on the Irish. 

Nolan Rogers’ point-after kick made it 25-15 Indians. 

But the Irish answered right back, again with the help of Dodge County miscues as the grab of a facemask added 15 yards to a big Batts run that would put Dublin at the Dodge 24. 

A matter of plays later, Trav Bostic took a toss sweep 12 yards into the end zone, and Urick Andrews kicked the PAT to cut the Indian lead right back to three. 

The rest of the deficit would disappear moments later. 

Dodge’s Howard fumbled in a pile on a return of the ensuing kick, and Batts came out with the football to give the Irish possession at the Dodge 29. 

Another quickie drive set up a Micah O’Neal keeper, off the pickup of a fumbled snap, by a sliver of the football as the senior backed through contact to only narrowly break the plane. 

The point had Dublin back in front 29-25, with a healthy 7:41 remaining on the third quarter clock. 

And the jig seemed to be up on a Dodge County gameplan that, to its credit, had the Irish offense a bit stumped for most of the first 24 minutes. 

“In the first half, they used a different defensive scheme,” Holmes said. “It took us a little while to figure out what they were doing, but once we figured it out, we were OK.”  

But as for tweaks at halftime, there were none for an Irish staff that had already pinpointed the needed adjustments, and put them to work before heading into the locker room. 

“We did the same stuff we did the last two drives in the first half.” 

From there, Dublin turned the game right on its head. 

Mincey found Jauriel Bray for a first-down completion on the next series, but Dodge was forced to punt one set of downs later, thanks to another unsportsmanlike penalty after third down. 

The Irish picked up five on a short run, then O’Neal burst untouched up the middle – through a gap washed clean by the block of Domimarkeyo Walden – to a 65-yard touchdown that ultimately increased the lead to 36-25. 

The pattern of Dodge punt and Dublin scoring drive repeated again after the turn of quarters. 

Two more Indian facemask penalties offset a Dublin hold on the 60-plus yard march, and O’Neal tunneled through a crevice to score for a third time in a row make it 43-25 Irish. 

A trade of scores made up the balance of time. 

Mincey dropped one in to Duke on a 41-yard shot to set up first-and-goal, and snuck it in for the touchdown. Dean pulled in a fade for the two-point conversion try to make it a 10-point game again. But an unsportsmanlike penalty on the celebration had Dodge kicking off from its 25, and Dublin scoring on just a 56-yard field to pad the lead. 

Batts fumbled to himself for the touchdown on a left-side jet sweep for the last Irish points of the night. 

Dublin fought off Mincey’s shot to the end zone to thwart a final Indian score on downs Dodge’s next time down, and ran out the remaining clock. 

“They did a great job offensively in the second half of making some adjustments, and did a really good job on the offensive line,” Brown said. “It’s just one of those things where we could never catch up with it. We’d get back in it, cut it to 10 points and they’d extend it.” 

The Irish ground attack compiled a 421-yard total on the night, with Trav Bostic (126) and Xavier Bostic (117) coming away with a triple-digit share. Batts closed out with 80, and O’Neal had 67. 

Dodge had a rowdy home crowd lit afire with its flying start to the game. 

The spark came from Kentrez Griffin, who picked off an O’Neal pass on third-down of the opening Irish series to set Dodge up to cash in. 

The Indians’ first play was a 21-yard strike from Mincey to Dean. And Duke rumbled his way in from nine yards to score on the very next. 

There was plenty of star power early on both sides of the ball from the Alabama-committed linebacker, who had an unidentified Crimson Tide-dressed representative in the house, and on the sideline. 

Johnson made most of his impact on offense, with 118 yards and three touchdowns rushing, in addition to two catches for 55. But he was also active on D with a hand in a good many tackles, and personally stripped the football to force a second Dodge takeaway later in the half.

The Indians succeeded in clogging Dublin running lanes early, preventing the Irish from establishing much rhythm and halting five of their first seven possessions – one on downs, two on turnovers and a couple more via punts. 

Dodge mounted a goal-line stand to prevent an initial challenge to its fresh 6-0 lead, but after punting the ball back to the Irish, offered them the first of many key breaks on the night via penalty with a pass interference foul that undid a third-down stop. 

Dublin took advantage with a 15-yard Trav Bostic touchdown run to tie, and went on top (thanks to an earlier missed extra point) as a low burner from Andrews narrowly cleared the crossbar. 

The Indians kept their foot on the gas, opening the next possession with a 65-yard Mincey-to-Dean touchdown pass to go right back on top as the first-quarter horn blared, though another missed PAT left the lead at 12-7. 

A defensive stalemate followed as Dublin blocked a man in the back to spoil a long O’Neal kickoff return, then lost possession on a fumble. 

The Irish would force a four-and-out to get it back, as a thundering hit from Jordan Tobridge stopped Howard in his tracks on a third down, and Mincey missed on a fourth-down shot for Dean. 

Dublin fired off another punt before Dodge’s fake helped break up the logjam. 

The Indians finished up the game with 381 yards of total offense, but gave over 100 back on penalties – at least six for the max of 15 yards. 

“We came out just like we talked about, with a lot of energy,” Brown said. “Our execution was really good on both sides of the ball, but we come out in the second half and the execution was still there, but we had a lot of self-inflicted wounds with penalties. It really set us back, and we couldn’t recover from it.” 

Dublin (10-0, 9-0 region 2-High A) and Dodge (8-2, 6-2 region) are both idle this coming week, when the rest of the state makes up remaining games postponed by Hurricane Helene. 

Word of final state playoff seeding, for each, could come as early as Saturday.