Ridgeland’s Noah Cooper runs past Sandy Creek defenders during the Georgia High School Association Class AAAA state football championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., on Saturday. The Ridgeland Panthers played against the Sandy Creek Fighting Patriots for the title.
Ridgeland quarterback Trevor Long winds up to throw.ATLANTA – In the grand scheme of things, kicking a field goal down 38 points is a footnote in a lopsided football game. For the Ridgeland Panthers, those three points – and the seven that later followed it – represented more than window dressing in Saturday’s 45-10 championship loss to Sandy Creek.
The second-half effort showed the fight and resiliency of a team that does more than preach the word “family,” according to coach Mark Mariakis.
“At halftime [with Ridgeland down 31-0] I told them, ‘When you’re a family, you’re always a family and you never go back on your family, and you don’t hurt your family’s feelings and you always fight for your family, ” Mariakis said. “Let’s just play a football game and see what happens, but don’t ruin a season by having an emotional letdown.
“I didn’t expect them to get down. They’ve gone through adversity all year long, but they’ve always come back and, hey, we’re in the state championship football game. What more can you say?”
Ridgeland ended its breakthrough season at 13-2 after being run over, run around and just plain outrun in a first half in which Sandy Creek outgained the Panthers 286 yards to 108. Their shot at shocking a team going for its fourth state title in six years was over, and now it was all about being able to look at each other in the locker room after the game and not turning away.