By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

             The calendar says they played only seven weeks ago. Might as well have been a year.

          It was on Oct. 19 when Bainbridge drove north to face Warner Robins in Region 1-5A play. The Bearcats rode home with their worst loss of the year, 38-0.

          They haven’t lost since. And they haven’t had all sorts of other things to deal with.

          “That week wasn’t a normal week for them,” Warner Robins head coach Mike Chastain said. “They were in the middle of a hurricane the week before. The Friday of our game, they still had 30 percent of their team without power.”

          The Bearcats got the power back off and on the field, and have stunned every Friday night since, finding themselves in position for the ultimate chance to avenge a humbling loss by playing for a state championship game.

          Warner Robins has erased 38-0 from the memory bank about as much as Bainbridge has.

          “I don’t think they were ready to play the first time around,” Chastain said. “We don’t think nothing about that 38-0 score at all.”

          Obviously, both teams have major momentum.

          Bainbridge raised eyebrows out of the playoff gate with a 40-13 romp over visiting Jones County, and the Bearcats kept on raising eyebrows, more so with a clutch win at Buford.

          “Buford’s long and big in a lot of positions,” Chastain said. “But they’re not overly fast as a team. I think the speed was a big mismatch for them a little bit.”

          Warner Robins ended the state’s longest winning streak in a semifinal with an impressive and convincing 45-28 win over Rome, avenging last year’s 38-0 loss to the Wolves in the state title game.

          “Our guys played really good,” Chastain said. “I think we played our best game all year, so far.”

          Rome used a couple trick plays early, but the Demons responded and took a 28-14 lead. The Wolves responded to tie at 28.

          And Warner Robins responded. Bigger. Others worried about the Rome comeback. Not the Demon head coach.

          “I felt on the sideline like we never lost control of the game,” Chastain said. “I think we were in control of the game the whole time, I really did. I think that’s a testament to how good we were playing.”

          Rome was held to its lowest total of the season for the second straight week.

          “(Rome) wasn’t just moving the ball at will against our defense,” Chastain said. “Our defense was playing really good.”

          Dylan Fromm was 40 of 54, and Chastain has been happy how his defense responds to little rest with the quick-strike offense.

          “Our defense, to hold them to their lowest total of the year, with an offense like ours, who throws the ball and doesn’t take a lot of time off the clock, says a lot for our defense,” Chastain said. “They’re playing really good.”

          Chastain has raved in recent weeks about the play of linebacker Demarcious Robinson.

          “He had 19 solo tackles against Rome,” Chastain said. “Everybody in our league will tell you what makes our defense go is our outside backers, Christian Anderson, who’s a senior, and Ahmad Walker, who’s a sophomore.

          “But I’m going to tell you right now, Demarcus Robinson for us has been playing absolutely lights out.”

          Chastain said there’s no real secret to what has Bainbridge, an 8-4 team last year that lost 49-28 to Starr’s Mill in the second round, in this position.

          “They’re playing really hard,” he said. “Probably a lot of people say that, but I’m telling you, man … And what makes them unique is they’re really fast and they play really fast. You have guys on your team that can flat-out run, but they might not play fast.

          “Everybody on their team is playing really fast right now.”

          Quarterback Quayde Hawkins has completed 49.5 percent of his passes for 1,601 yards, and Caleb McDowell’s 910 yards lead the run game.

          Randy Fillingame gets 7.9 tackles a game and has 30 tackles for loss for a defense giving up 13.7 points a game since that Warner Robins loss.

          There’s no magic plan at this point for either team, since everything is working. Chastain knows his team can’t overlook the Bearcats, and doesn’t expect that to happen.

“We don’t care about scores,” he said. “The thing we care about is they’ve beaten four top-10 teams to get here.”