Column: Touchton, Pace fulfilling 2017 promise

Published 1:59 pm Tuesday, December 1, 2020

MOULTRIE — Sitting in the press box at Mack Tharpe Stadium last Friday, masked and sanitized and looking down at Tom White Field where Zane Touchton and Charlie Pace were performing so dandily in the playoff-opening win over Brookwood, I recalled an autumn afternoon a little over three years ago.

It was a Thursday in October and before me that day was an eighth-grade/seventh-grade football doubleheader against Lowndes.

Sub-varsity games, played mostly in front of the players’ families and a few die-hard fans, don’t often resonate.

But there were several performances that day that have been brought in even sharper focus these 37 months hence.

Colquitt’s eighth-graders won 52-20 and the seventh-graders took a 41-6 victory.

In the eighth-grade game, quarterback Zane Touchton threw for 374 yards and six touchdowns, a rare performance at that level.

The game was close in the first half, with a late 70-yard Touchton-to-Tajh Sanders scoring pass giving the Packers a 24-20 lead.

The second half was all Colquitt County, with the Packers outscoring the Vikings 28-0.

In a performance that perhaps foreshadowed his work against Brookwood, Touchton was 14-for-19 and completed passes to eight receivers.

Sanders also caught another touchdown pass of 64 yards. Jamad Willis, Bill Hicks, Ontavious Carolina and Jessie Lawson also grabbed scoring passes.

Pershaun Fann was active on defense and also kicked the game’s final extra point.

The seventh-grade game was never close, thanks to Pace.

In the first quarter, he touched the ball six times. The first  resulted in a 49-yard touchdown run and the second in a 2-point conversion that put the Packers up 8-0.

Three minutes later, Pace took a punt back 53 yards for an apparent touchdown called back on a penalty. He made the flag moot when he scored moments later on a 13-yard scamper and then ran in the conversion.

When Lowndes floundered on its next possession, the Vikings’ punt was fielded by Pace, who ran it 40 yards for a touchdown and a 22-0 Colquitt County lead.

Pace scored again in the second quarter on a pass from I’Marius Bussie, putting Colquitt up 28-0.

The play of Pace and his Packer partners gave the seventh-graders a 5-0 record.

Pace has continued to been an effective ball carrier for the Pack. Even before being elevated to the varsity last season as a freshman, he was wowing the fans at the mini-stadium next to the practice facilty.

In the ninth-grade team’s victory over Dougherty in September, he scored on a 1-yard run and an 88-yard kickoff return. He gained 63 yards on eight carries while playing just two quarters.

Touchton and Pace have built on the promise on display that afternoon in 2017.

Taking over after Xavier Williams was lost for the year with a knee injury, Touchton, still reed-thin with that blink-quick release, will head into Friday’s game against Walton having thrown for eight touchdowns this season.

Pace, one of the “Three Amigos” in the Colquitt County backfield, leads the Packers in touchdowns with nine.

Both have plenty of snaps to play before their careers end. Here’s wishing them the best.