The Bainbridge Bearcats (6-0) had their first shutout of the season Friday night with a 38-0 win over the Americus-Sumter Panthers.
Bearcat running back Dameon Pierce’s 85-yard touchdown run was the highlight play of the night.
“There was great perimeter blocking by Zyon McGee,” Pierce said about the score. “He set that 85-yard touchdown off.”
Bainbridge’s running game was on point against the Panthers. Pierce finished the night with 151 yards rushing on 12 carries and two touchdowns. Malique Pate rushed for 70 yards to help offset Pierce’s carries.
“Malique has been running the ball for us,” Bainbridge coach Jeff Littleton said. “He’s a good change up for Dameon. It’s good he got a few carries. When he does get the carries, Dameon does block for him. That’s being an unselfish teammate.”
Quarterback Brett McLaughlin was 5-for-18 for 86 yards. Pierce caught two passes for 40 yards. Other receivers were Tyler Story for 33 yards and Zyon McGee for 23 yards.
“We just didn’t execute,” Littleton said about the passing game. “We didn’t execute at times, but we still came back and got in straightened out a couple times. We have to be able to execute when people do something different to us.”
Bainbridge was first on the scoreboard with a 30-yard field goal from kicker Blake Green to make the score 3-0 with 8:04 left in the first quarter.
The Bainbridge defense forced a three-and-out on the Panthers’ next series. The Bearcats bounced back on the field and McLaughlin threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to Story to make the score 10-0.
The next score was Pierce’s 85-yard touchdown drive to make the score 17-0. Story scored on another pass from McLaughlin, this time an 18-yarder, to make the score 24-0 with 11:24 left in the second quarter.
Bainbridge scored again on Pierce’s second touchdown of the night, a 33-yarder that saw the sophomore running back bulldozing over Panther defenders on his way to the end zone.
“That’s instinct,” Pierce laughed.
The Panthers weren’t able to put together productive drives to get points on the board. Bainbridge kept pressure on Panther quarterback Mekall Yancie high all game, holding him to 39 rushing yards.
“We knew we had to play low and hard up front and inside to control the line of scrimmage to keep that quarterback bottled up,” Littleton said. “We did some things on the perimeter to try to keep him inside. We felt like our defensive line could control that part for us. We just had to make sure we kept that quarterback inside. He got lose a couple times. He’s a good player.”
Bainbridge scored their final touchdown, and only touchdown in the second half, on a 17-yard run from running back Dalvin Spivie to make the score 38-0.
Bainbridge returns next week for a game against Worth County. Kick off is at 7:30 p.m. at Centennial Field.