Desmond Jackson sprints ahead for a big gain after a pass reception in the Hancock Central game last Friday night. Finally into the Region 7A schedule, the Washington-Wilkes Tigers started off right with a strong 28-6 win over the Hancock Central Bulldogs last Friday night. The game was effectively a shutout as Hancock's only score came on a W-W fumble that the Bulldogs scooped up and ran in to the end zone.

Otherwise, as is becoming a pattern, the Tiger Defense was stalwart, holding Hancock not only scoreless but to a mere 64 yards of total offense.

"Our defense hasn't been scored on in nine quarters and we played outstanding defense on Friday night," W-W Head Coach Lee Hutto said. "Hancock had 10 possessions and out of those 10 possessions we had eight three-and-outs. That's not bad at all." The coach said he was "really, really pleased" with the way the Tigers played defense and pointed out that his players did a good job of recognizing Hancock's multiple formations and being in the right coverage. "Our kids played real hard and I was proud of those guys," he said.

"They scored early when they picked up a fumble and ran it in for a touchdown," Hutto said, noting that it was not the defense that allowed the score. "But that was the only way they were able to put points on the board."

Once, in the third quarter when Hancock recovered a bad Tiger snap, the Bulldogs threatened with great field position beginning at the W-W eight-yard line. But the Tiger defense dropped them for a loss on the first play and allowed no more before forcing the punt. Otherwise, Hancock was never threatening.

"If we can keep playing that kind of defense, we're going to be okay," Hutto said.

On the other side of the ball, the Tigers amassed 410 yards of their own and actually began to balance the attack with a little passing yardage. While mainly Eric Scott and T.J. Mickens stacked up the ground game with 189 and 130 yards, respectively, Teverrius Jones threw a pair of touchdown passes to Desmond Jackson and ultimately completed seven of 10 attempts. Freshman backup QB Brian Hardigree also had a completion while he was taking a few snaps in the second half.

"We've been really working hard on our passing game in practice and I think it's starting to pay off for us," Hutto said. "I was proud to see that we had some different kids catching passes and our pass protection was very good. We had plenty of time to throw the football.

"I always tell my guys, 'I want us to throw it when we want to.' When it's third-and-10 everybody knows you're throwing it," the coach continued. "We don't want to be in those situations where we have to throw it - we want to throw it when we want to. And we were able to do that Friday night," he said.

Issuing a reminded that the 2009 Tigers are still a very young team, Hutto said he had several sophomores who are big contributors and playing well for W-W. "One of them is Javon Jenkins who played very well Friday night," he began, and enumerated others. "David Martin is starting on our offensive line. T.J. Mickens rushed for over 100 yards. Daquan Heard caught a pass for us. We're still a young football team and we're playing a lot of sophomores and those guys are really playing well," he commented.

With six games down and four to go, the Tigers have earned a week's rest and will take this Friday off for an open date. All of the remaining four games are region contests and are critical in the race for preferred playoff berths. Lincoln County (October 16) and Wilkinson County (October 23) have already been ranked in the state's top ten this season and are currently steady at No. 3 and No. 8 in Georgia Class A. So, for the Tigers, wins are necessary from now until the end of the season, if they want to host a playoff game and if they hope to make it deep into the post-season.

For now, though, it's time to heal up and get ready to host the Red Devils just over a week from now.

"We've got a week off and we'll give the team Friday off from practice so our coaching staff can have a chance to get out and scout a little bit," Hutto said. "We're going to use this week to start preparing for Lincoln County and to kind of get our legs back up under us.

"We're not going to go out and bang on each other a lot at practice," Hutto continued. "We're going to do a lot of special teams work, do a lot of fundamental stuff, and just fine tune some things," he explained.

The Tigers hope to use the off week to help get some injured players back on the playing field. Robert McGill and Brandon Dill have both been out since the Blessed Trinity game with shoulder injuries, and Whit Winfrey has been sidelined since the Banks County game with a knee injury

"If we can get those guys back, we'll be 100 percent going into the Lincoln County game - which we need to be," Hutto said.