It was a Friday night Wiley Suskawicz won’t soon forget.
The Bradley Central senior, who has shown a knack for coming up big throughout his prep football career, played a massive role in helping the Bears rally in the second half for a 31-20 win at Jefferson County in the first round of the TSSAA Class 6A playoffs.
Behind Suskawicz’s two second-half touchdowns and an interception that set up the game-sealing score, Region 2’s third-seeded Bears scored 21 unanswered points after trailing at halftime against Region 1 runner-up Jefferson County. The Patriots managed to score with barely more than a minute remaining, but Bradley Central recovered the onside kick and ran out the clock for the upset.
The Bears (8-3) will travel in the second round next week to Murfreesboro to face top-ranked Oakland (11-0), the Region 3 champion. Oakland, which has won four of the past five Class 6A state titles (while finishing as the runner-up in 2023) defeated Cookeville 42-10 in a first-round game played Thursday night.
Bradley Central took nearly six minutes off the clock on its first possession of the third quarter, and the drive was capped by a short run by Suskawicz as the Bears regained the lead at 17-14.