The Adairsville Tigers (5-5, 4-4) defeated the Ringgold Tigers on Friday night by a score of 18-3.
In a game that wasn’t necessarily crisp for either team, the hometown Tigers will take the win to give them an excellent chance to make the playoffs, which start in two weeks. Ringgold drove down the field twice against Adairsville in its opening two possessions but was only able to find three points for its efforts converting just one of its two field-goal attempts.
The Adairsville offense was unable to find much momentum in the game as it didn’t score until just under four minutes left in the second quarter on a 17-yard touchdown pass from Conner Crunkelton to Jacob Ray. Crunkelton would convert the 2-point conversion to take an 8-3 lead. Adairsville would drive down the field and look at 4th and goal from inside the 1-yard line with just 11 seconds left in the first half. Instead of kicking the field goal, Coach Eric Bishop decided to go for it, but the Ringgold defense kept Adairsville out of the end zone.
After neither offense was able to hold a long drive, it appeared that the Ringgold offense would break the scoreless second-half. Derrick Simmons would have none of that for Adairsville has he intercepted the pass and thwarted the drive. Adairsville would make it an eight-point game off the leg of Emanuel Lopez with just over nine minutes left in the game. Lopez would miss a second kick with just over five minutes left in the game to make a two-possession contest, but it wouldn’t matter.
Ringgold was unable to move the ball deep in its own territory and was forced to punt it away. The Tiger offense milked three minutes off of the clock, which wasn’t enough for the visiting Tigers to convert a long field into points. Following a strong punt from Lopez, the Ringgold offense fumbled the ball at its 1-yard line. The Adairsville defense pounced on the ball for a game-sealing touchdown.
Adairsville will have a bye week next week as it waits to learn its fate of a playoff berth.