North Augusta and Thomson rarely face off, in fact, Friday night was only the second time North Augusta has visited The Brickyard, and its first time coming away with a win, 25-18.
This was only the fifth meeting in history between these programs with the first set of games coming in 1923 and 1924. Then, they went 94 years without playing, despite being only 34 miles apart.
In the 2024 version, the Yellow Jackets came out swinging in their first game of the season and found the endzone first, but it didn’t stop there as they scored on three of their five first-half drives.
The guy who was responsible for all three? Senior quarterback Corey Tillman Jr.
Halftime didn’t stop Tillman from producing as he came out on the first drive of the third quarter and hit Connor Brown who caught it over the Thomson DB to extend the Jackets’ lead to 25-0.
Tillman finished the game with 214 passing yards, four touchdowns and just one interception en route to an impressive start to his Senior campaign.
“We know he can certainly play better, he knows that as well,” said North Augusta head coach Richard Bush, who is in his second season at the helm of this program. “He missed some throws deep and short, but we’re glad he’s on our side.”
All night when the Jackets needed a big play, Tillman always looked for the aforementioned Connor Brown. That’s a connection that is going to give opposing defenses nightmares all season. Brown has a sneaky quickness to get open on any route, and Tillman knows where to find him, the kind of connection you can’t teach.
Plus, there’s history there. Brown was Tillman’s favorite target in the passing game last year, as Brown led all North Augusta receivers with 31 catches for 395 yards in 2023.
“This is something we’ve had since our freshman year,” said Tillman regarding the duo’s connection. “We’ve been friends ever since, and knowing he’s my guy, knowing that I can get it to him. He expects that out of me as well, to get him the ball on time.”
Not to be lost in all of the success is junior running back Mike Doe who was a huge part of the 2023 team, and will be an even biggest asset to this year. He had a nice game on the ground and through the air Friday night as he scored on a screen pass where he made a man miss and walked into the endzone.
The Yellow Jackets played a brand of defense that was special in the first half.
They held Thomson to just 79 total yards in the half, 29 through the air and 50 on the ground. Anytime you hold a Thomson team to 50 yards rushing, you’re doing something right.
The Yellow Jacket defense sort of disappeared at times in the second half, but that’s part of it, learning how to finish, and in the end they still finished the job with the game-sealing interception by Zeddy Tillman, as time expired.
“We have the capability of playing very good defense, when we do our job, but at times tonight we didn’t,” Bush said. “In the end, an ugly win is better than a pretty loss.”
Even if ugly, coming into The Brickyard and pulling off a victory is no small feat as only one team in the regular season has done so in the last three seasons.
The Jackets (1-0) will look to build off of that as they host Lexington (S.C.) (1-0) next week. Lexington opened its season Friday with a 24-0 win over Gilbert.
As for Thomson (0-2), there are plenty of reasons to believe in this team even with the 0-2 start. The Bulldogs still have the pieces to be great in Region 4-AA this season.
For this young group of skill guys on offense, there was no better test than the one they faced tonight, and they still produced. The inexperience showed in the first half, but they turned it on, as all good teams do, and almost came back and won.
The Bulldogs’ scoring got going on a 95-yard kickoff return by Jaris Sinkfield, to let the Bulldogs finally breathe again and get off their backs. Sinkfield was an offensive star in last week’s loss to Evans as well. His improvement should only make him more dangerous of a playmaker.
If there is anything we learned about Thomson in the last two weeks, it’s that coach Michael Yongblood’s squad is resilient and they have an absolute weapon in Sinkfield who eventually found the endzone two more times on pass catches of 28 and 12 yards.
Quarterback Markevion Jones grew up some more as well, particularly in the second half, as he put together a performance of 155 passing yards, 41 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
The Bulldogs have some things to clean up but the talent is there. One of those items to clean up is penalties. Against North Augusta, Thomson was called for 16 penalties that totaled 123 yards worth.
After coach Michael Youngblood expressed some concern after last week at Evans, his defensive unit may have found its footing in the second half as it shut out the powerful North Augusta offense in the game’s final 21 minutes.
“The truth of the matter is we have some new guys in some skill positions, and we have a script that we follow every Wednesday, Thursday and twice on Friday, and we look out there at the first 10 plays of the game, and I guarantee you somebody has busted the play,” Youngblood said. “At the end of it, we gotta understand that discipline is going to take us there, and it will win.”
Losses aside, battling two larger schools in GHSA Class AAAAA Evans and SCHSL Class AAAA North Augusta should bode well for preparing Thomson for what it’ll see in Class AA competition.
If anyone knows that these tough games and losses are actually helping the Bulldogs it’s Youngblood.
“Right now, we aren’t ready to play anybody, but we’ve played a 5A school and basically another in North Augusta if you put them in Georgia,” he said. “That’s the thing I am trying to tell them. When you play a good team, you have to be disciplined. They are going to make plays, we knew they would, but you have to get up and win the next play.”
The Bulldogs also were without 3-star running back and Kent State commit Anthony Jeffery in this one, so that didn’t help with the inexperience.
Thomson will get a chance to rebound from these losses when they go on the road to the Academy of Richmond County (0-1) next Friday, August 30.
