[AtlPirateFan]

Now that I have slept on it, here is my take away and final post in this thread since it's now State Title week!!

Bourbon Co :
- The Colonels hang the moon on the big play. It seemed that all night long the Colonels would run 1 - 2 decent plays, seemed like they were going to settle down and start to drive they would turn right back and take 1 - 2 shots at the home run and then Belfry had the ball. Besides the final BoCo desperation drive of the night they did not execute very well in my eyes.

Dakota Mitchell is a beast and the Defense was well prepared for what Belfry was going to be doing early on. They however suffered from a weak schedule that did not test them al year long. This showed as the 3rd and 4th quarter rolled on when BoCo defense just seemed defeated and hung their heads several times on Belfry first downs.

Belfry:
I said earlier this year (I think in the JC pre game thread) that Belfry has been sloppy with ball control and penalties but the offense and defense had been good enough to overcome those mistakes most of the year. Tonight was no different. Some in the update thread where happy with what BoCo was doing defensively early in the game by stopping Belfry on 1 - 2 yard gains. Anyone who has watched Belfry in big games knew it was only a matter of time until things opened up and the opposing defense wore down. It was Sani to Keaton on about 2 plays in which Keaton made tacklers miss that really got the Pirates moving. Once BoCo defense had to cover Keaton on the quick pass, the middle and the outside things got ugly for them.

Defensively the Pirates played excellent football, aside from the secondary getting beat deep about three times they executed well, took the much needed big play away from BoCo and made them play their kind of football.

Final:
Controversial but needs if's and buts need to be said. BoCo was gifted the first 6. A pretty bad dead ball call on Belfry during the drive and a horrible no call on the opening TD run. The final 7 came from another lucky stroke when Hatfield uncharacteristically coughed it up. BoCo could have very easily been blanked in this one. On the other hand Belfry got very, very lucky on about 3 of the BoCo home run attempts. Had Pope and his receivers clicked any at all on the deep ball or the long Holman play not been called back then this is an entirely different ballgame and could have gone down to the wire.

Excellent game overall, Bourbon needs to face adversity in the future to overcome the Belfry's and I hope they travel to the CAM next year, these last 2 years have been fun.