Jenkins High School flag football coach Brianna Brooker is in a time crunch on Tuesday, an inconvenience she has gladly accepted.
The Warriors edged Lakeside-Evans 7-6 in overtime on Monday evening in the GHSA Division 2 quarterfinal playoffs played at Savannah High. That meant Brooker was due to attend a GHSA meeting – in person – at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Atlanta for coaches of teams in the semifinals.
Jenkins (17-2) will play Greenbrier, a 12-6 winner over Locust Grove on Monday, in the semifinals at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Savannah High’s stadium.
Brooker also is the Jenkins varsity girls basketball coach, and her team – which includes some flag football players – has a home game at 6 p.m. Tuesday against Long County.
“I’m getting on the road now,” Brooker said after Monday’s game. “Hopefully, this meeting takes about an hour and I can get back on the road and be there (at Jenkins) by 6 o’clock.”
New Hampstead’s Trey Lanier, like Brooker, juggles time between being a teacher and coaching both the flag football and girls basketball squads, whose seasons overlap when the former makes a playoff run.
The Phoenix reached the Division 1 semifinals in 2023, but their season came to a heartbreaking end on Monday in the second Division 2 quarterfinal game at SHS. Like the earlier contest, New Hampstead and Evans were scoreless through four quarters.
Unlike the early game, they went to a third overtime, with Evans winning 13-12 to advance to the semifinals on Thursday against North Oconee, which defeated Calvary Day 13-6.
Recaps of the two games played Monday at Savannah High:
Jenkins 7, Lakeside-Evans 6 (OT)
Jenkins forced overtime with a defensive stop on Lakeside-Evans’ last drive. Amani Bryant caught a pass and landed on the turf two yards short of the end zone on the final play of regulation.
The Warriors, who had defeated Lakeside-Evans 18-13 on Oct. 17, got the ball first in overtime and had four downs to score from the 10-yard line. They needed only one, with quarterback I’Yarna Lee pitching the ball to A’Niyah Browner, who zipped around the left side to the end zone.
The one-point conversion did not start smoothly, with Lee bumping into a teammate in the backfield, but she kept her poise and passed to Ke’Ara Jones in the end zone for a 7-0 lead.
Not only was Jones’ catch worth one precious point, but it was a rarity on this rainy night for the Warriors’ struggling passing game.
“The only one,” Brooker said of the team’s pass reception, adding for emphasis, “the only one, the only one.”
Then it was the Panthers’ turn in overtime. They pitched to speedy Ellie Clemente for a 5-yard gain on the right side, and ran it again for a 1-yard gain. A quarterback keeper moved the ball to the 2, and on fourth down, Rose Cliatt found Callie Hain in the end zone for a 7-6 difference.
It came down to the try, with Lakeside-Evans (12-14) going for the equalizer. But Jenkins’ Eden Bullard stretched out an arm and broke up the pass, securing the victory and leading to chants of “Eden! Eden!” from joyful teammates.
“We had to make some changes,” Booker said. “Normally, (Bullard is) our safety in the back. Because of this (Lakeside-Evans) team, we wanted to make sure we went with our best defense. She came up really big for us when it mattered. That’s a huge moment. I’m happy for her because she’s a senior.”
Jenkin, the D2-Area 3 regular-season champion at 7-0, is having a historic season (in the varsity sport’s young history in Georgia). Browner, a junior running back, is the Area 3 Offensive Player of the Year. Lee, a sophomore, was first-team quarterback.
“Those two are super-amazing athletes,” Brooker said. “They’re dominant here in flag football. They’re dominant in basketball. Both are point guards. They have good grades. They’re amazing kids.”
Brooker said defense has been critical to the team’s success, and that was key to keeping the Panthers off the board while the Warriors’ offense tried to find its footing in wet conditions.
Browner, who made an impact on both sides of the ball, said teamwork was a point of emphasis going into the game.
“If one person’s not in, it falls apart,” Browner said. “So we built our chemistry to work together and stick together. If someone’s falling off, you help them. You pick them up, not pull them down.”
Evans 13, New Hampstead 12 (3 OT)
The Phoenix got big defensive plays with interceptions in the third quarter by Mila Cramer and in the fourth quarter by Deja Willis.
Evans (16-5) went first in overtime as New Hampstead (16-2) deferred. Starting at the 10, Chloe Crawley ran around right end on first down for three yards, then Wren Chochol took the next snap around right end for a Knights touchdown. Kyleigh Chase tried to score the one-point try but her flag was pulled in time to keep the score 6-0.
Lanier, the Phoenix coach, has not run a specific play in the playbook in regulation, saving it for just such an occasion as overtime.
Quarterback Promise Cooper got the ball in the backfield to Taliyah Headman, who pitched it back to Gianna Brown, who passed to Cooper in the end zone for the tying touchdown.
“I had that play that we scored in overtime; I was kind of putting that in my back pocket,” Lanier said. “I knew (the Knights) had film on us. They had the reverses and stuff. I tried to run one reverse (in regulation) to see if they were prepared for it, and they were. I knew that play was going to work later because I knew they had overprepared for the reverse. But I didn’t want to use it until I actually had to.
“So I used it in the first overtime and we scored on it,” he continued. “I don’t have any regrets in terms of what we did offensively. That’s what we do all year; we run triple option. We live and die by it.”
New Hampstead had a chance to win on the one-point try, but Cooper’s pass to Brown was incomplete.
The Phoenix opened the second overtime at the 5-yard line, and Cooper gained four on first down. She then found Brown, who made a great catch in traffic for the go-ahead TD, but Cooper was stopped on the try, leaving a 12-6 advantage.
Evans tied the score with two running plays, but Cramer made a game-saving flag pull on Chochol just before she reached the end zone on the try.
The third overtime is only tries, and the Knights went for one point from the 3-yard line. Chochol took the snap and tossed to Angel Radford for a 13-12 edge.
New Hampstead had one play and chose to go for two points from the 10-yard line and a victory. However, Cooper’s pass was incomplete, ending the game.
“I thought we were in a good opportunity to put the game away,” said Lanier, explaining that he didn’t want to go to a fourth OT.
“They were resilient,” he said of his players. “They didn’t let the regular time affect them in overtime. They were able to put the ball in (the end zone) a couple of times, which is why I decided to go for two. I felt like we had some momentum and were clicking. I felt like we needed to go for it.”
New Hampstead lost only twice all season, against teams now in the Division 2 state semifinals. The Phoenix avenged their 15-12 defeat on Oct. 28 to Jenkins with a 7-0 shutout on Nov. 12.
Lanier credited his players for being to adjust and adapt to different schemes on defense, which he said was a key to the team’s success in 2024. Brown is the Area 3 Defensive Player of the Year, Headman made first-team defense and Cooper was second-team at safety/cornerback.
“In the past, it’s been offense,” Lanier said. “We really didn’t have many explosive plays on offense, so we really relied heavily on our defense, and being able to get in and out of defenses. A lot of teams will stick in one defense. We switch our coverages, we switch our fronts.”
GHSA FLAG FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS
FINAL SCORES
Division 3
Quarterfinals
Pace Academy 26, South Effingham 7
Division 2
Quarterfinals
Jenkins 7, Lakeside, Evans 6
Evans 13, New Hampstead 12
North Oconee 13, Calvary Day 6
Semifinals
(Thursday’s games)
Greenbrier at Jenkins
Evans at North Oconee
Division 1
Quarterfinals
Southeast Bulloch 7, Harris Co. 0
Long Co. 20, Redan 19
Semifinals
(Thursday’s games)
Southeast Bulloch at Dodge Co.
Columbus at Long Co.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy Prep Sports Report
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