By Kevin Price For GCS Athletics The Brunswick High Pirates put themselves in position to claim another region championship as they knocked off Lakeside-Evans 61-34 Friday night at Glynn County Stadium. The matchup between the bricks was billed as the “Battle of the Unbeatens” in Region 1-AAAAA with the Panthers coming to town with a perfect 7-0 record which included a 5-0 mark in region games and the Pirates sporting a 6-1 season record and also a 5-0 ledger in league games. Only one team would leave the field after this one with an unblemished region record, and that team was the home squad who went to 6-0 in the region with its seventh straight victory overall. “Our kids played extremely hard all night long in all three phases of the game,” said Brunswick head coach Garrett Grady, “and I’m extremely proud of our coaches for the way they prepared our guys for this game.” Brunswick now has sole possession of first place in the region standings with two league games left to finish out the regular-season schedule. The Pirates can actually drop one of their last two games and still claim the region title and top seed for the Class AAAAA state playoffs that will kick off in mid-November. Even if the Panthers were to win their final two region games, BHS and Lakeside would finish tied for first, but Brunswick would get the league title by virtue of its victory in the game between the teams. The Panthers, who had never started a season with seven straight wins, are solo second after Friday’s setback. They close the season slate with region counters against Bradwell Institute and Statesboro. Brunswick, ranked ninth and looking for a third region crown in four seasons, will be off next week before finishing the season schedule with league games against South Effingham and Bradwell. Both BHS and Lakeside will be heavy favorites in their remaining games and figure to finish one-two in the final region standings. All other teams in the league have at least two losses in region play and the real battle coming down the stretch will be for the final two playoff spots reserved for the region. Of course, the Pirates aren’t thinking about letting up. They hope to win those last two region games claiming this year’s region title with a perfect march through the league schedule which is what they did when they won the region back-to-back in the 2021 and 2022 seasons. “We definitely have to take it one game at a time and finish strong. That’s gonna be the message to our guys,” Grady said. “We want to keep elevating. We don’t wanna reach a plateau right here. We don’t wanna get complacent. There’s no room for that in our program.” Friday’s game was every bit as exciting as one of those thrill rides that will be coming to the Brunswick Exchange Club Fair in a few weeks. It was full of big plays, dazzling moves by individual players and colorful decor, more specifically the pink penalty flags used by the officiating crew as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It was also a dual between the starting quarterbacks who both made plays with their legs and their passing arms while directing offenses that combined for the 95 total points scored and more than 1,000 yards of offense between the teams. “This was a big game tonight. It was emotional,” Grady said. “A lot of points going back and forth, and there were a lot of sudden changes in the game. And when that happens, the emotions get running high very quickly and the momentum changes fast.” Brunswick finished with 535 yards on the night, rushing for 329 and getting 206 through the air. Lakeside ended up with 506 total yards with 278 coming on the ground and 228 through the air. For BHS, junior signal-caller Grant Moore had perhaps his best overall game of the season as he finished 14-of-17 passing for 206 yards and two touchdowns. Moore also rushed for 62 yards on 10 carries and a touchdown when he scored on a 45-yard keeper in the first half for the Pirates. “He stepped up, made some great throws and had that run. He’s a great leader for us, too,” Grady said. Senior running back William Heck led the Pirates’ rushing attack with 113 yards and two touchdown on 23 carries. Fellow senior Jamarious Towns ran for 55 yards and a score on four tries. He also caught three passes for 27 yards. Brunswick’s leading receiver was junior tight end Heze Kent who finished with five catches for 113 yards and a touchdown. Kent also ran for a short score for the Pirates. The 61 points scored by the Pirates were the most they have scored this season. Their previous high was 49 which they had scored in three games this season. The 61 points were also the second-most the Pirates have scored in three seasons under Grady. They scored 63 in a win over Islands last season. Also, the Pirates had not scored over 60 points in a region game since posting 64 against Bradwell in 2017 until doing so in Friday’s showdown against the Panthers. The Pirates came into Friday’s game ranked fifth in scoring in Class AAAAA as they averaged 42.7 points a game. It wasn’t just the offense that did the scoring against the Panthers, though. The Brunswick defense chipped in, too, as it has in previous games this season. BHS got an interception return for a touchdown for a second straight game when Sehki Ashley returned a pick 65 yards to give the Pirates a 13-6 lead early in the second quarter. Also in the third quarter, senior linebacker Jashawn Towns stripped the ball from a Lakeside receiver and ran 45 yards for a key touchdown that kept comfortable distance between the Pirates and Panthers on the scoreboard. For Lakeside, senior quarterback Ty Jones was worth the price of admission alone. The 5-foot-8, 140-pound human sparkplug made the game a personal highlight reel as he accounted for more than 400 yards of offense for the Panthers and was part of four of their five touchdowns. Jones, also a standout player on the basketball floor, threw for 206 yards, going 13-of-21 on the night with two TD passes and also two interceptions, while running for another 203 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries. He also caught a pass for Lakeside’s first touchdown of the game, and Jones played in the defensive secondary for the Panthers also, making a few nice tackles against the big-play threats that the Pirates have in the open field. Jones did keep the ball on designed runs, but he also scrambled for several huge gains, escaping the Brunswick pass rush time and again with quick feet and great athleticism. After the game, a reporter asked Grady if he was one of the most elusive quarterbacks he’d ever seen on a prep football field. “Oh yeah. Him and Stetson Bennett,” said the BHS coach who coached the former two-time national-championship winning quarterback for the Georgia Bulldogs when he played at Pierce County. The touchdown catch by the little guy gave the Panthers the early lead as they scored the second time they had the ball. Jones would first keep for a 43-yard gain on a third-down play to keep the drive alive for the Panthers before he would line up wide and catch the touchdown pass from 17 yards out for the game’s first score and a 6-0 lead. Brunswick went 80 yards to tie the score on its next drive. The Pirates had a touchdown wiped away on the final play of the first quarter by a penalty. But on a fourth-down play to start the second quarter, Moore lofted a pass to the left corner of the end zone that Kent went up and hauled in, wrestling the ball away from a defender for the touchdown. “That was an unbelievable play,” Grady said. BHS took the lead on the ensuing extra-point kick by Landon Etheridge. The next Lakeside possession is when Ashley picked off the pass and galloped down the visitor’s sideline for a touchdown. The Panthers tried to slip Jones out of the backfield and throw him the ball again, but Ashley had the play covered up. BHS would go up two scores midway through the second quarter when Moore would keep for a big gain along the home sideline, and after managing to stay in bounds, he wound up avoiding defenders and going in for his 45-yard score. Jones answered, though, four plays into Lakeside’s next series when he ran 61 yards to paydirt to make it 20-13. The Pirates wheeled 63 yards in nine plays on their last drive of the opening half with Heck scoring from 5 yards away to make it 27-13 with 1:02 remaining until halftime. Jones would work his magic to get the Panthers in position to attempt a field goal before the horn to end the half, but Brunswick blocked the attempt. Early in the second half, the teams traded touchdowns. BHS took the kick and went 62 yards in five snaps with Towns scoring from 20 yards. Jones took the Panthers 59 yards to the end zone in seven plays, with BJ Grissom catching his tipped pass on fourth down in the end zone for a 19-yard score. The Pirates would recover an onside kick and needed only three plays to go 49 yards with Moore throwing a strike to Waseem Murray for a 30-yard score and a 41-20 lead for BHS. But, Jones played pitch and catch with Mikeal Grissom on Lakeside’s next series, avoiding a near-sack and tossing the ball to Grissom who would take it 42 yards for a touchdown, making it 41-27 with 7:45 still left in the third. A key sequence in the game took place after that. The Pirates appeared to score again after recovering another onside kick when Moore and Towns hooked up for a short pass on third down that went for a 50-yard scoring play. But, a holding call on the Pirates negated the touchdown. BHS then ran another play, but was forced to punt, giving the ball back to Lakeside at their own 17-yard line. The Brunswick defense also would make a stop and force a Lakeside punt. On the kick, the ball took a BHS bounce, but before it rolled dead, it nicked a Brunswick player who was trying to get away from the ball. A Lakeside player quickly fell on the ball and the Panthers were awarded the football at their own 45. Brunswick coaches argued the ruling with the officials, trying to convince them that it didn’t touch their player. The call stood, however. Just like that, the Panthers were back on offense, still trailing 41-27, but with chance to make it a one-score game again. Their possession didn’t even last one full play. Lakeside completed a pass at the line of scrimmage near the BHS sideline and Brunswick’s Jashawn Towns snatched the ball away from the receiver and proceeded to race toward the end zone for a 45-yard score that made it 48-27 after the extra-point kick. Talk about a game-changing play. That was one, indeed. “The momentum was definitely on our side from that point going forward,” Grady said. The Panthers did come right back and score on a 1-yard run by Thexton to finish off a 65-yard drive. But, they just could not stop the Pirates. After yet another onside kick, BHS used six plays to go 48 yards and scored on a 2-yard run by Kent. BHS finished out the scoring with an 11-play, 70-yard drive following a Jashawn Towns interception of a Jones pass. A penalty against the Panthers on a fourth-down play gave the Pirates another down inside the 3-yard. They picked up the first down on the extra snap, and then with a fresh set of downs, Heck scored from a yard out to round out the score-a-thon.