Thomas County Central's Tykeem Wallace (8) celebrates an interception in the first half Saturday against Warner Robins at the Jackets Nest.

THOMASVILLE, Ga. — After the postgame huddle, some Thomas County Central football players trudged off to the dressing room.

Others hung around and looked for their families.

Near midfield, coach Ashley Henderson found many reasons to smile following a 42-10 rout by powerful Warner Robins at Thomas County Stadium.

Somehow, you just got the feeling that there were more important things in life to worry about than a football game Saturday night.

After an eventful week that included loss of practice time and the Region 1-5A opener moved from Friday to Saturday for the Yellow Jackets by Hurricane Michael, Henderson wasn’t happy with the loss. But he chose to dwell on the positives.

”There are no moral victories, but a lot of those guys wearing the blue-on-blue still don’t have power,” Henderson said. “It’s not just them that don’t have power but their families as well. A lot of these folks came out here and supported us tonight. That’s a testament to the Yellow Jacket nation.”

The defending state runner-up Demons (7-1 overall, 2-0 Region 1-5A) showed no mercy in the late afternoon contest. 

After it fell behind 3-0 in the first quarter when Caleb Clark connected on a 26-yard field, Warner Robins scored 14 unanswered points to grab the lead for good on a pair of touchdown passes from quarterback Dylan Fromm to wide receiver Marcayll Jones.

The first touchdown pass came when the duo connected on a 73-yard heave that Jones slipped uncovered into the secondary and strolled into the end zone for an easy score.

Then a few minutes later, the pair connected again, this time on a 67-yard strike to make it 14-3.

Central (5-2, 0-1) made a game of it when Tykeem Wallace broke free on a 37-yard gallop to trim the deficit to 14-10 just before halftime.

However, Fromm again connected with Jones to close the half on a 38-yard touchdown pass to make it 21-10.

The Demons scored midway through the third quarter on a 12-yard scamper from Deondra Duehart, then just a little more than a minute later, a 50-yard pick-six by Ahmad Walker gave Warner Robins an insurmountable 35-10 advantage.

“That’s a good team there … they’ve done that to a lot of people other than just us,” Henderson said. “Credit those guys for putting us away in the end.

“We’ve got to be able to extend some drives and help out defense out. Getting better is non-negotiable and we will work to continue getting better.”

The Jackets, who had their four-game winning streak snapped, will now play back-to-back region games on the road starting at Harris County on Friday. They will then play at Veterans on Oct. 26 before playing host to Bainbridge in the regular-season finale on Nov. 2.