On paper, it won’t go down as a region championship game.
But don’t tell that to North Augusta coach Richard Bush, his players or the raucous Yellow Jacket fans who celebrated a win for the ages on a play that will probably get talked about around North Augusta for quite a while.
After falling behind two scores to Gray Collegiate, North Augusta methodically clawed its way back into the game until senior quarterback Corey Tillman threw an impossible looking touchdown pass to Connor Brown who snagged it, controlled it and got the obligatory one foot down in bounds with a Gray Collegiate defender literally draped over him.
The touchdown pass came at the 1:22 mark of the fourth quarter and provided the final score as North Augusta defeated Gray Collegiate 20-17 Friday night.
“It was a heck of a play,” Bush said. “A heck of a throw. Corey put it where only Connor can catch it, and Connor does what Connor does. He makes plays in traffic and in coverage. This is a guy whom we expect to make these kinds of plays, and he does it all the time.”
In a game that was billed as a South Carolina High School League Region 4-AAAA championship matchup, that billing lost its steam after the SCHSL ruled in a 10-2 vote that Gray Collegiate had to forfeit its previous nine wins due to playing with an ineligible player.
The War Hawks technically came into the game 0-9 after the forfeitures, and appeals are in place that will determine whether or not Collegiate will participate in the playoffs. None of that got decided before this game, so Friday’s clash was all about pride and playing for the love of the game.
“We never mentioned anything to our team about what was going on with [Gray Collegiate],” Bush said. “Like we always tell our guys, we control what we can control. All we knew was the football was gonna be spotted at 7:30 p.m. Friday night and a kickoff was gonna happen, and we needed to show up and be ready to play.”
It took a while, but after the Yellow Jackets got punched in the mouth early, they responded.
Once Gray Collegiate scored a pair of quick first quarter touchdowns, North Augusta answered with a 35-yard scamper from Tillman that set up junior tailback Michael Doe’s short touchdown run to chop the lead to 14-7 with 44 seconds left in the first quarter.
“When you get down like that, it’s just about playing the next play,” Bush said. “Nothing you can do about mistakes we made early in the game. You let it go, you keep fighting, you keep playing and chip away. That’s what we told them. Play 48 minutes of Yellow Jacket football and let’s see what happens.”
Gray Collegiate tacked on a field goal and North Augusta added another touchdown to make it a 17-10 Collegiate advantage at halftime.
Down 17-13, North Augusta’s Ty Burke picked off a Gray Collegiate pass in the end zone which stopped a War Hawk scoring drive and gave the Jackets new life.
Tillman’s heroics came soon after, and the Jackets’ defense held one more time to punctuate the win which gives them a 9-1 finish and some redemption as region champs — for the fifth time in eight seasons — given the way last year’s region title game with Midland Valley ended.
“It’s good. It feels good,” Bush said. “I’m excited for the kids. Year round, they work so hard for them to be in this situation. I’m happy, happy for the seniors that they get to win a region championship. I’m happy for my coaches. I have the best coaches in the state of South Carolina. But these kids, man, they play so hard and work so hard all the time. They deserve it.”
But Bush says they’ll only have about 36 hours to relish it. North Augusta will host a first round Class AAAA SCHSL playoff game next Friday, and it won’t be long before Bush will be expecting his bunch to turn the page.
“They can enjoy it tomorrow,” he said. “And when we meet up on Sunday for film session, it’s time to start getting ready for the next game.”
