FOOTBALL: Dublin stays hot on bitter night in bowl, freezes out Thomasville for berth in state semifinals

The only thing colder than the temperature Friday night was the Dublin defense. 

And the Irish were pretty frosty when it came to denying Thomasville scoring chances throughout a frigid GHSA state quarterfinal showdown that ended in a 35-13 win. 

The Bulldogs broke the ice with some big plays, but were able to chisel their way over the goal line only once. Dublin, with three red-zone stands and two fourth-down stops in plus territory, limited them to a pair of chip shot field goals in the game’s first 46 minutes. And it took a circus catch late, with the game’s outcome already firmly set, for Thomasville to put its lone touchdown on the board. 

Some more stone cold execution on offense helped the Irish crank out 440 total yards, and the 28 points in quarters 2 and 3 that buried the Bulldogs before a bundled-up crowd at the Shamrock Bowl. 

As has been the case for much of this still-unbeaten season for Dublin (13-0, 9-0 region 2-High A), the three phases worked well hand-in-hand to produce another of the complimentary performances that win games deep in the playoffs.

“I just felt like it was a tremendous team victory,” Dublin head coach Roger Holmes said. 

The No. 2 Irish – among the state’s last four standing for the sixth time in the 23-year Holmes era, and the 12th season in program history – will welcome top-ranked Toombs County to the Bowl Friday night. 

In the High A bracket’s other semifinal matchup, Fitzgerald and Northeast Macon (emerging the victors from respective shootouts with higher seeds Worth and Fannin counties) will battle it out for the opposing spot in the state title game set for Tuesday, Dec. 17 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. 

Thomasville (10-3, 5-1 region 1-High A) proved a worthy matchup. 

Though Dublin outgained them by over 150 yards and held a nine-minute edge in possession time, the Bulldogs created more scoring opportunities on the night. 

The Irish, though, cashed in five of their six, while the Bulldogs converted for points at a 3-for-8 clip, and came up with a touchdown on just one. 

For Holmes, the win came down to not only some detailed, disciplined play on both sides of the ball, but also to the strong will to win and chemistry that’s defined this Irish team all-season. 

“This football team cares about each other, they love each other, and that in itself is very very important,” he said. “When I was asked the other day what my thoughts were going into this game, I don’t know because I know they’re a good football team. But I can promise you, our guys are going to play with phenomenal effort. I think they did that again tonight.” 

Dublin had built a 35-6 lead before giving up its only touchdown, with just more than two minutes left, on an impressive grab by Thomasville’s Demario Sawyer that you could only tip your hat to. 

The Bulldogs’ junior secured the 17-yard pass of Cam Hill from the other side of his defender, pinning the ball to the back of Trav Bostic and hanging on as the two fell to the turf in the end zone. 

Thomasville, which gained 275 total yards, would get much closer to six on a handful of previous drives that were each held out of the end zone. A pair of third-down stops inside the Dublin 5 forced the Bulldogs to settle for short field goals by Camdon Christie that bookended a first Irish score of the night early in the second quarter. 

Azontae Walker, who scored one Dublin’s five touchdowns as a rusher, leapt to pick off a third-quarter pass in a similar doorstep situation that took away Thomasville’s last shot to get back in the game. 

Willie Batts, with a team-leading eight tackles (including two for loss and a sack), and Xavier Bostic, with seven tackles (plus one for loss, and two hurries), led the way for the Irish on D. 

Dublin had success with nearly every feature of its offense, though its biggest plays of the game belonged to Batts, who posted a team-high 147 rushing yards on 15 carries, plus a catch for 11, and its first two touchdowns. 

The senior wingback routinely found the edge on sweeps to the perimeter, taking one 69 yards to the house on the first play of the third Irish possession for the first of their four unanswered scores to widen an existing 7-6 lead. 

Walker and Trav Bostic, who carried seven times for 64 yards, followed with touchdown runs on either side of the half. Xavier Bostic, with 70 on 11 rushes, barreled in for the last in the fourth quarter. 

Quarterback Micah O’Neal, who was 3-for-5 passing with 35 yards and rolled up 109 on 10 keepers, was also instrumental in coordinating an attack that not only had the Thomasville defense out-maneuvered, but also repeatedly drove the Bulldogs off the football to grind out key first downs. 

Hill was 16-of-28 for 148 yards, and rushed 11 times for 28 of the Bulldogs’ 127 on the ground. 

The Thomasville signal-caller delivered some key throws or scrambled to move the chains on six out of 11 third downs. 

He did so on two with strikes to A.J. Hill and Si Wilson to keep the Bulldogs’ opening drive moving, then scrambled for back-to-back first downs that got them inside the 10 to threaten a touchdown. 

Dublin’s defense rose up to stuff a first-down run and tip a second-down dump to the end zone before Walker stormed in to pressure Hill into an off-balance throw that fell incomplete on third down. 

Christie’s 22-yard kick salvaged points to put Thomasville up by an early count of 3-0. 

A bang-bang call along the sidelines – as a Hill strike to tight end Rex Schofill was ruled O.B. preceding a third-down stop – kept Thomasville from driving to add to the lead before Dublin found the scoreboard. 

But the Bulldogs’ response to the first opposing touchdown was swift. Ant Anderson spun out of a tackle to break their first double-digit run of the game 49 yards to the Irish 20. 

Another Anderson carry, and a Dublin facemask penalty on the end of it, had Thomasville poised to go back in front with goal to go. 

But the Dublin D rose to the challenge once again. 

Jarvis Wiggins restrained Anderson at the 2 to save a touchdown, then Walker dove off the edge to tackle him behind the line on second down. 

The Bulldogs went student body left for the quarterback Hill and third down, and were stonewalled by Xavier Bostic. Dublin didn’t go for the hard count on fourth-and-goal, and Thomasville trotted out Christie for a 20-yard attempt to cut the deficit to one. 

Jamarcus Knight’s rush forced the issue on a third-down screen pass, and Wiggins combined with Jalen Dardy for a fourth-down tackle on the back-to-back stops that got Dublin the football back twice more before the half. 

The Irish lead became 22 before Thomasville’s first touch of the third, and another promising drive that turned into a do-or-die. 

The surgical Hill made some key throws to navigate to plus territory, where Lavonte Cole’s 19-yard run got the Bulldogs inside the 10 again. 

But the opportunity came up empty as Hill threw the ball back to the middle of the field off a roll, but failed to see Walker lurking in the tall grass before the Dublin linebacker had leapt up to steal the pass. 

Thomasville got it back in a hurry after the rare Irish punt, but suffered another costly misfire on a bad snap on play 1 of the fourth quarter. Hill recovered, and threw the ball away to retain a two-yard distance on fourth down, but Anderson was tripped up by Batts in the backfield, and stumbled shy of the line to give the ball over on downs. 

Penalties restrained Irish progress on a first possession that was forced to punt after two series. But they got things rolling on the next opportunity from their own 31, as O’Neal opened things up with a 55-yard scamper off a midline read to reach the red zone after just two plays. 

Moments later, Batts scored from 10 yards to complete the 69-yard procession on a reverse handoff, and also create a highlight clip that got some prominent play among coaching gurus on social media. 

The artful play design, which faked the staple “buck sweep” to the right-hand side, had left guard Antwain Hudson pinwheeling back to the left as Batts got the football on a second exchange, and combining with O’Neal on a block that took Thomasville defender Tyler Ivey clear into the sideline, and out of the picture for the Batts walk-in. 

He turned the left corner with hardly anyone home on a next touch later in the quarter, as the Bulldogs overran an Irish jet sweep in the backfield, and everyone with an angle on the potential tackle again got stuck in a block. 

Urick Andrews kicked a second point-after, and Dublin’s lead was 14-6. 

The Irish came with more wrinkles at the start of the 59-yard march that would increase its halftime lead to two scores. 

O’Neal ran the midline again, but this time waited an extra beat after pulling the ball for Batts to lead block to the left, and rode his way out of bounds after a quick pickup of 15. 

All three of his backfield mates got a touch in the next sequence of plays, as Batts went left and out to stop the clock, Trav Bostic fought his way over the first-down line to the right and Xavier Bostic ripped up the middle down to the 12 with time winding short. 

Batts pushed his way down to the 4 on back-to-back carries, then Dublin went to a fifth ball-carrier of the drive in Walker, who followed a clearing block from Trav Bostic to the left side and into the end zone with 1:08 to go in the half. 

A stop on downs got the Irish one more shot with just 21 seconds remaining, and they impressively got four snaps out of the minimal time to move within range as O’Neal scrambled out of bounds after a chunk, then hit Batts for nine over the middle before a “Statue of Liberty” draw to Xavier Bostic that got close to the 20 to set up a slightly ambitious Ethan Spivey field goal try of about 40 yards. 

The kick, though, never came to fruition after Dublin was flagged for presnap illegal procedure. The offense came back out, and an incompletion on the final play sent it to half. 

The Irish picked up where they left off in the third quarter, taking the opening kick and driving 77 yards to a touchdown to go up 28-6. 

O’Neal completed a pass to Sirius Tobridge to convert a third down, then Xavier Bostic broke a big run up the gut, for the key plays that set up the 18-yard run of Trav Bostic – on a triple-option pitch – to finish it off. 

Dublin’s final score concluded a 59-yard trip, with Trav Bostic taking the lead on a couple of key carries before O’Neal hurdled a sprawled defender on a run to convert a fourth-and-five. 

Xavier Bostic punched it in from the 4 for the score a few plays after. 

Toombs County’s will be a second pack of Bulldogs visiting the Shamrock Bowl in as many weeks, and these armed with an even sharper set of offensive teeth, and defensive claws. 

The Irish expect a particular handful for their defense against Georgia State-committed quarterback T.J. Stanley, and his slew of college-caliber receiving targets who have carved up most of the teams they’ve played this fall. And Toombs is also rushing for over 200 yards per game. 

“We made some mistakes in our secondary, fundamental mistakes that you can’t afford to make right now,” Holmes said. “We’ve got a great football team coming in here next week. The bottom line in all that is, we’ve gotta sharpen up some things on and off to hang on and win.”