Perfect! Greer roughs up Blue Ridge, enters playoffs 10-0

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Julie McCombs

Greer players celebrate their perfect regular season in front of the scoreboard.

 

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Julie McCombs

Blue Ridge (white jerseys) and Greer players try to get the best of each other on the line.

 

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Julie McCombs

Brian Garrett (18) of Blue Ridge tries to get some distance from a Greer defender.

 

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Julie McCombs

 Adrian McGee rushed for 212 yards and 2 touchdowns to lead Greer to 51-0 win over Blue Ridge.

 

The Yellow Jackets capped their first undefeated season since their 1994 state championship run with a dominating 51-0 win over rival Blue Ridge Friday night at Dooley Field.

Greer (10-0 overall and 7-0 in Region II-3A) got off to the fastest of starts, needing just 10 offensive plays to score 28 unanswered first-quarter points. Greer led 42-0 by halftime and kept the Tigers (6-4, 4-3) off the scoreboard for the Yellow Jackets' second straight shutout.

"We'll enjoy this one, but we'll be back at work tomorrow, I promise you that," Greer Head Coach Will Young said.

The Class 3A playoffs and the Yellow Jackets' drive for the program's first state title since the perfect season of 1994 will begin next week. Greer will host either Lancaster or Clinton. 

Lancaster's 42-35 win over Broome secured its playoff berth and knocked Union County out of the playoff hunt.

"We're trying to repeat it," junior linebacker Isaiah Long said of the 1994 perfect season and state championship. "We've got to win five games to get there. We've got to keep doing what we're doing and going hard every single play."

A 10-9 loss to Blue Ridge a year ago not only motivated this year's Yellow Jackets for a bit of payback against the Tigers, but Young said it was quite probably one of the biggest catalysts for this year's unbeaten mark.

"We definitely had last year's game -- we thought about it a lot in the offseason and in the summertime," Young said. "I think it's definitely something that motivated our kids to work hard in the offseason and I think it's what propelled us to win nine games this year. I felt like we were the better team last year, but we didn't play that way. They played at a higher level than we did last year. We've challenged our kids to play at a high level this year, and they did."

Junior quarterback Mario Cusano said he had circled this year's Halloween date with Blue Ridge on his calendar as soon as the 2014 schedule came out.

"I've been waiting for this -- 365 days," Cusano said. "I just wanted to come out and dominate them, and that's what we did. No letting up."

Cusano passed for four touchdowns, including two to Dorian Lindsey, and ran for another as the Yellow Jackets rolled up 451 yards of total offense, while limiting Blue Ridge to 140 yards of offense, 49 of which came on a single screen pass from quarterback Jay Urich to Vonta Jenkins.

"We just got dominated on both sides of the ball," said Blue Ridge Head Coach Shane Clark. "We had a lot of mental mistakes that carried over on how we executed on offense and defense . . . We've got to do a better job of coaching and practicing and get ready to go in the playoffs next Friday night."

The Tigers will travel to South Pointe for their opening-round playoff matchup.

Greer junior running back Adrian McGee gained 134 of his 212 rushing yards in the first half and scored on runs of six and 26 yards.

"We haven't been undefeated in a while -- 20 years is a long time, and this has given us a lot of confidence," McGee said.

The Yellow Jackets clinched sole ownership of the Region II-3A title with their win over Southside a week ago coupled with Blue Ridge's loss to Chapman.

Young said sitting atop the region alone was another motivating factor for his team this season.

"Our kids wanted to win the region championship outright," Young said. "I think we've shared the last two years. We got kind of tired of sharing and kind of got back to where we used to be when we owned the region. That was the biggest motivator."

But now, a fourth state championship trophy in the program's history and a chance to repeat 20-year-old perfection is the only motivation the Yellow Jackets need.

"This (win) gives us a really good emotional boost for the playoffs," Cusano said. 

Statistics by Red Watson

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