Buccaneers Advance to QuarterFinals

The 10-1 Allatoona Buccaneers were the visiting team as they took on the undefeated ML King Jr. High School Lions at James Hallford Stadium in Clarkston on Friday night.

Allatoona won the toss and elected to receive the opening kick. The Bucs offense went to work quickly with runs by TJ Herron (10) and Cody Sorrells (30). Moving the ball to inside the Lions 5 yard line before being stopped.  Nathan Shaw (29) made a field goal to put the Bucs on top 3-0 with 6:05 left in the first quarter. 

The Bucs defense would keep the Lions from scoring and force ML King to punt the ball. The Bucs would again drive the ball down the field but get stopped deep in the Lions' territory, having to settle for another Shaw (29) field goal with 4:51 left in the second half. 

With the score 6-0 in favor of the visiting Buccaneers, the Lions went to work on offense. The Lions settled into an air attack that moved the ball quickly down the field. With 2:19 left in the half the Lions got onto the board with a touchdown from Roland Rivers (12).  he extrta point was blocked by Allatoona's Charlie Maison (28). 

With 2:19 left in the half, the score was tied at 6. ML King added a second touchdown with 31 seconds left in the half on a 37 yard pass play. Again, the extran point attempt was no good, this time due to a bad snap. At half time the score was ML King Jr 12 and Allatoona 6.

Things weren't looking good as the second half started. The Lions took the kick and scored another touchdown on a 48 yard pass play with 5:52 left in the third quarter. This time, the extra point was good making the score Allatoona 6 and ML King 19. However, Allatoona wasn't done yet. As the horn sounded to end the third quarter, the Bucs would finally score a touchdown with a pass to Tommy Davis (2). Adding the extra point, the score was 19-13.

The fourth quarter started with the teams trading punts. Finally, with 3:56 left in the game, Allatoona started getting some offensive momentum. Moving across midfield the Bucs ran and passed the ball until with 1:37 left in the game Jeremy Uzee (6) connected on a touchdown pass to Clarence Soleberry (4). The extra point by Shaw (29) was good, making the score Allatoona 20 and ML King 19. 

The Lions would not go quietly. They completed a pass to midfield where a personal foul for a helmet-to-helmet hit against Allatoona gave them an extra 15 yards down to the Bucs' 35 yard line. With 36 seconds left in the game, the Lions would make their first mistake of the game. Terence Sykes (1) from Allatoona intercepted a pass on the 1 yard line getting the ball back to the Bucs offense. The Allatoona offense was forced to punt the ball back to the Lions with 7 ticks left on the clock. The Allatoona defense held the Lions on the next two plays and Bucs won. The final score was Allatoona 20 and ML King 19.

Allatoona will move to Quartefinal play against Whitewater High School in Fayetteville next Friday night.