‘Keep playing’: Marion County overcomes blown lead to reach 1A semifinals
The Trice McCannon hype was warranted. But this was a team effort by Marion County.
It would be easy to write how McCannon, Marion’s dual-threat quarterback, again led the Eagles to a convincing win in the GHSA 1A public playoffs. Or about how Brandon Thomas was nearly unstoppable out of the backfield for the Eagles, scoring from 23 yards out in the first half while the Eagles racked up 340 yards of total offense.
But this effort by the Eagles required late heroics on both sides of the ball.
Marion County beat Lincoln County 28-21 thanks to a powerful offensive outing from the Eagles’ usual contributors and a pair of timely turnovers on defense.
“We’ve had games all year where we get down, and the last two games we were down 13 or 14 points,” Eagles coach Chris Kirksey said. “We came back within two or three minutes. I think that’s got to help down the road, and I think it helped tonight for us to handle the adversity.”
That adversity was a 21-21 tie minutes into the second half. And early, it didn’t look like this game would be headed to the wire.
Marion jumped out to a 21-7 lead, thanks mainly to McCannon. The Red Devils tried to spy him, to counter the many read-options the Eagles ran. That didn’t go quite as planned, as the senior broke off several long runs and scored the game’s first touchdown on a three-yard rush. His second touchdown involved a collapsed pocket, a wild scramble behind the line of scrimmage and a perfectly-placed 36-yard touchdown pass to receiver Johnny Walker.
Everything sort of went wrong from there. Lincoln pulled within seven points on its opening drive of the second half, then came up with a scoop-and-score to tie the game following a fumbled Marion County punt.
Kirksey said the message on the sideline was simple: Keep playing.
“Keep playing,” Kirksey said. “Got to play 48 minutes all the way through, all the way to the end, and when you do that, good things happen. And it happened again for us tonight.”
It happened with nine minutes left in the game, when Thomas broke free for a 27-yard touchdown run – a score that proved to be the game-winner.
Marion County, now headed to the semifinals, will host Pelham, which defeated Mitchell County 31-20. The Eagles won the 4A division A title this year and handled business against rival Schley County in the second round of the playoffs.
It only gets tougher from here: The Eagles haven’t lost since Sept. 27, when Manchester blew them out 43-14, and will face an 11-win team in Pelham. The Eagles are 2-0 all-time against Pelham, though both of the games happened a decade ago.
The Eagles are battle tested, but next week will be a challenge. But if they show the same fight they did Friday night, it’ll be tough to pick against them.
“It’s a team win,” Kirksey said. “Offensive line, you can’t go without mentioning those guys in the trenches. Every play. … Our kids did a good job of carrying out their plan.”
