Rome's second visit to The Mac? Warner Robins stuns the defending state champs, snaps 40-game winning streak
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Who's going to win Friday night?
A few times, it sure looked like Rome was going on pace to get a chance to win its third straight state championship.
The Wolves came out swinging and scored their first touchdown on a double-reverse flea-flicker type play, and later overcame a two-score deficit in less than two minutes.
But Warner Robins eliminated a lot of the taste of last year’s 38-0 state title loss at McConnell-Talbert by pulling away to win in style 45-28 on the same field and end the Wolves’ 40-game winning streak.
The top-ranked Wolves appeared to have all the momentum after Jamious Griffin’s 4-yard score and accompanying PAT – following an interception deep in Demon territory – tied it at 28 with 3:57 left in the third.
But as they have done plenty during their own nifty run the past two seasons, Warner Robins answered, the drive aided by a personal foul. Dylan Fromm split the coverage and connected with Marcayll Jones from 16 yards out, and the hosts regained the lead with around two minutes left in the third.
“I think early on some of their drives just got extended by some untimely penalties and we couldn’t overcome that,” Rome coach John Reid told the Rome News-Tribune.
Rome soon faced a fourth and 1 on the Demon side of the field and lined up to go for it only for quarterback Knox Kadum to quick-kick the ball. Warner Robins took over on its 27 and ended up getting a 33-yard field goal from sophomore Cary Payne to go up 38-28 midway through the fourth quarter.
The Wolves recovered the squib kick, and, aided by a pass interference call, moved to the Demon 39 and faced another fourth and short. They needed 10, and got nine, giving it back at the Warner Robins 30 with just less than five minutes left.
Warner Robins survived a holding penalty to add a clinching touchdown from Jahlen Rutherford with 2:58 left in the game, upping the advantage to 45-28.
A touchdown pass was dropped, and then another pass broken up with the end zone with just over a minute left.
Rome hadn’t lost since Sept. 9, 2016, 33-30 to Kell. The last time the Wolves gave up more than 40 points in the postseason was in a 41-14 loss to Gainesville in the first round of the 2012 playoffs.
Warner Robins is making its second straight championship appearance and third since 2004 when it won the 4A title. Fromm passed for 373 yards, two of his four touchdowns going to Marcayll Jones.
“I thought we had a good run in the third quarter and it was a back-and-forth game,” Reid told the paper. “They got the best of us in the end. They had a good game plan.”