Colquitt County blows past Lincoln 56-16

Published 12:01 am Saturday, September 30, 2023

MOULTRIE — Colquitt County coach Sean Calhoun has been looking for a dominating performance from his 2023 football team and he got one on Friday.

The Packers scored four touchdowns in a six-minute, four-second span of the second quarter for a 49-9 halftime lead en route to a 56-16 victory over Lincoln High of Tallahassee on Friday on Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium.

Colquitt will take a 6-0 record into a bye week and then the four-game Region 1-7A portion of its schedule that will begin on Oct. 13, at Camden County.

The Packers are the only region team without a loss.

The game was the second in a row in which the Packers reached the half-century mark.

But while the previous week’s 50-42 victory over Cedar Grove was up in the air until the Packers fell on an onside kick with 36 seconds remaining, Friday’s affair was never in doubt and the entire second half was played with a running clock.

Colquitt rolled up more than 400 yards of total offense with quarterback Neko Fann throwing for an unofficial 246 yards and two touchdowns to Ny Carr.

Carr’s first scoring catch, a 74-yarder that helped give the Packers a 21-3 lead with 5:27 left in the first quarter, allowed the Packers senior receiver to tie Kiel Pollard’s school record of 34 career touchdown receptions.

The second, a 19-yard difficult grab in the end zone in the third quarter, set a new school record.

Colquitt also ran for five touchdowns and got a 75-yard punt return for a score by Jah’Boris Fuller.

Junior kicker Brett Fitzgerald converted after each of the Packers eight touchdowns and drove six of his kickoffs into the Lincoln end zone.

The score was 56-9 until Trojans, who had surrendered just 21 points in their first four games this season, reached the end zone on a 4-run by Christian Lawrence with 2:37 remaining.

“We needed that,” Calhoun said. “In our other wins, we were dominating at times. But I felt like this was our most consistent, not perfect, but most consistent win.

“It was really, really, really good for us to get a win like this going into the bye week. You don’t want to limp into the bye week and you don’t want to limp into the region.”

Lincoln has shut out its two previous opponents, but the Packers got on the board less than two minutes into its annual Homecoming game when Ramsey Dennis took a direct snap, found a crease and bolted 56 yards to the first of the Packers eight touchdowns.

Then, after Lincoln’s first three snaps of the game netted just two yards, Colquitt’s Ry’Sheed Fuller blocked Thomas Arnold’s punt and the Packers took over on the Trojans 1.

After an incomplete pass, Day’Shawn Brown scored and the second of Brett Fitzgerald’s eight extra points put the Packers up 14-0 just 2 1/2 minutes into the game.

A 65-yard run by quarterback Christian Sims gave Lincoln a first down at Packers 13 moments later, but the Trojans had to settle for a 26-yard Arnold field goal.

On the second play after the next kickoff, Fann under threw a long pass that Carr was able to stop, gather in, maneuver around a Lincoln defensive back and outrace the Trojans to the end zone.

Colquitt found itself up 21-3 with 5 1/2 minutes still remaining in the first quarter.

Four minutes later, Fann threw a pass that was picked off by Lincoln’s Eddie Guerra.

A 37-yard strike from Sims to Mekhi Maddox gave the Trojans a first down at the Packers 20.

On the second play of the second quarter, Sims got the ball out to Timothy Smith, who made the first Colquitt tackler miss and legged it to the end zone to complete the 12-yard scoring pass.

After Trenton Dunbar blocked the extra point, the Packers lead was 21-9.

Colquitt then scored the next 35 points before the Trojans managed their late meaningless touchdown.

The Packers punted away their next possession, but then controlled the rest of the quarter.

Landen Thomas capped a short drive with a 1-yard Wild Hawg touchdown to help put the Packers up 28-9 with 6:34 left.

Two minutes later, Packers cornerback Ka’Marian Williams picked off his third pass of the season to put the Packers is business at their own 22.

In quick succession, Brown ran for 28 yards, Fann threw to Carr for 38, the Trojans were flagged for a personal foul and Brown scored his second touchdown from 6 yards out.

Up 35-9, the Packers got a 17-yard combo sack from Javaris Parrish, Arnold Flearau Jr. and Nick Pace, forcing another Lincoln punt.

Colquitt needed just two Fann passes to score again: a 40-yard pitch-and-run to Zay Williams and the 19-yarder that Carr somehow managed to pull in to set the school touchdown pass reception record.

But there was still 2:20 left in the half and Packers weren’t finished.

With 41 seconds left, Lincoln punted yet again and Fuller fielded it at the Colquitt 25.

He appeared stopped early in the run, escaped, headed across the field and led the Trojans on a futile chase to the end zone.

Those 75 yards did not figure into the Packers total offense of the first two quarters, which was an impressive 362 yards.

The second half was played with the running clock, but Calhoun said the Packers had put some emphasis on playing well in the third quarter.

The starters returned for one last series and drove 52 yards in six plays to score on a 10-yard run by Dennis, his second touchdown of the game.

The ball was snapped just 15 times by the two teams in the third quarter.

In the fourth, Lincoln drove 82 yards in 12 plays to score on the 4-yard run by Lawrence.

Lincoln completed 20-of-33 passes for 202 yards, but rushed for just 98 yards, 65 of which came on the Sims first-quarter run.

“It was a great team win,” Calhoun said. “When you get a defensive turnover, score on a punt return and block a punt, you are going to win most of the time.”

Calhoun also called Carr’s setting the school touchdown reception record “awesome.”

“It was, for him as an individual,” he said. “But also, the team gets excited about it too.”

Carr, who earlier in the week backed off from his commitment to play next year at Georgia, also has the school record for career catches and career receiving yards in his sights.