Pat Donahue/Times-EnterpriseWilliam Lee and Colin Grimsley bring down a Tiftarea runner in Brookwood's loss to the Panthers.

THOMASVILLE — Tiftarea Academy’s quick start — and also perhaps a second game in 72 hours — proved too much for the Brookwood Warriors to overcome Friday night.

The Panthers posted a dominating 35-0 win against the Warriors at Warrior Field, going to 8-0 on the season and 2-0 in the region. Brookwood fell to 4-4 overall and 0-2 in the region.

Brookwood beat Deerfield-Windsor 44-23 on Tuesday night in Albany, and had to face the unbeaten Panthers, who have won the six victories they have earned on the field by an average of 39 points.

But Brookwood coach Shane Boggs didn’t want to call the quick turnaround a factor in Friday night’s loss.

“I’m not willing to pin it on that,” he said. “I don’t think for a second that’s what this was about. I think first of all you have to give Tiftarea a lot of credit. They’re a really good team, a really sharp team. They outplayed us grossly in all three phases. I am definitely disappointed in the way we played.”

The Panthers started quickly and never let up. Spence Massey capped the opening drive, a four-play, 63-yard march, with a 9-yard touchdown run less than 90 seconds into the game.

Massey’s 1-yard run on the very next possession pushed the lead to 14-0. Tiftarea had a drive going on its possession but Massey fumbled at the end of a 22-yard gain. The Panthers got the ball two plays later on Mark Coley’s interception.

Tiftarea stretched the lead to 21-0 early in the second quarter on Logan Crosson’s 56-yard strike to Jayk Sailer.

Meanwhile, the Panthers’ defense bottled up Brookwood’s potent offense. The Warriors went three-and-out on four of their first five possessions, the interception being the lone exception, and didn’t record a first down until the 6:37 mark of the second quarter.

“I thought we played decent defensively,” Panthers coach Erik Soliday said. “We were able to make stops. Offensively, I wasn’t real happy. We blew some opportunities in the first half with some mistakes we shouldn’t be making. But our defense made up for it and did a pretty good job. I was happy with their effort.”

Aside from the fumble, Brookwood also stopped Tiftarea on a fourth down at the Warriors 38 and Nic Lauderdale snuffed out a Panthers’ scoring chance with an interception in the end zone

But the Panthers went back to work right after that, taking over at the Brookwood 35 after stopping a fake punt. Crosson connected with Casen Royal on a 10-yard touchdown pass with 46.6 seconds left in the half for a 28-0 lead.

Behind Crosson, who was 7-of-12 for 136 yards passing, and Massey, who ran 14 times for 104 yards before leaving late in the second quarter with an injury, the Panthers outgained the Warriors 312-59 in the first half. They also racked up 16 first downs to Brookwood’s two.

“It sounds silly,” Boggs said, “but it’s a product of them being really good and us not bringing our A game. There were a lot of unforced errors by the Brookwood Warriors. They executed and we didn’t.”

Brookwood was flagged seven times for illegal procedure or offsides on offense for the game.

Adam McKinney’s 1-yard run with less than a minute to go in the third quarter, followed by Bo Cunningham’s point after, provided the final score.

Tiftarea got the ball back with more than 10 minutes remaining in the game and ran out the clock on its final possession.

Tiftarea travels to Deerfield-Windsor on Oct. 26 and Brookwood visits Valwood.

“We’ve got a really good group of kids,” Soliday said, “and they really have been workman-like every week. They haven’t looked ahead. They came in every day ready to go to work.”

Boggs didn’t spend much time talking to his team after the game, preferring to wait until the start of next week to dissect the loss.

“There is a lot of fatigue, for sure, and I want to wait until they have a better mentality on Monday, and they will,” he said. “We’re going to be able to talk objectively about fixing a bunch of mistakes. We played poorly and I coached poorly.”