Blessed Trinity Looks To Avenge 2016 Playoff Loss To Mary Persons

By Mike Blum

ROSWELL, GA -- In its first six seasons of playoff football under coach Tim McFarlin, the Blessed Trinity Titans have suffered three razor-thin losses: one in overtime and two in the final seconds when the team had chances to either win or force overtime.

Blessed Trinity avenged one of those losses in the second round of this year’s state AAAA playoffs at Cartersville, which knocked the Titans out of the playoffs in 2012. The Titans will get a chance to answer for a more recent defeat, as they travel to Forsyth on Friday to take on Mary Persons in the semifinals. This will be the third straight playoff game on the road for Blessed Trinity.

The two teams met in Forsyth in the quarterfinals last year, with the Bulldogs winning 28-27 when BT missed a 28-yard field goal on the final play of the game. Mary Persons lost 38-7 the next week to Cartersville, which went on to win its second straight state title. The Titans ended Cartersville’s 41-game winning streak with a 21-17 victory in Cartersville in the second round two weeks ago.

Last year’s Blessed Trinity-Mary Persons game was a back-and-forth battle, with the Titans leading on four occasions, the last time at 24-21 early in the fourth quarter after the third field of the game by Brooks Hosea.
Mary Persons quickly regained the lead 28-24 on a long touchdown pass before Hosea’s fourth field goal pulled the Titans within 28-27. The Blessed Trinity defense held to force a Mary Persons punt, and the
Titans got the ball near midfield with about a minute to play.

Five plays gained 43 yards to put BT on the Mary Persons 11, but after making his first four field goal
attempts on the night, Hosea missed from 28 yards. Both offenses moved the ball effectively, but the Bulldogs scored four touchdowns to two touchdowns and four field goals for the Titans. Blessed Trinity did most of its damage through the air, as Jake Smith threw touchdown passes of 43 yards to Ryan Davis and 50 yards to Will Carlton, with the two receivers combining for 178 of the team’s 207 passing yards.

The Mary Persons defense kept BT’s running game in check, limiting Steele Chambers to 39 yards. The
Bulldogs’ two main running backs combined for 235 yards and three touchdowns. The Titans return most of their top players from last year’s team, with Hosea one of the departing seniors. Smith, Chambers, Davis and Carlton have accounted for most of the Titans’ offense this season, with sophomore running back Elijah Green sharing the duties at running back with Chambers, who is one of a number of two-way starters for BT.

Through 13 games, Smith has passed for 1,887 yards and 16 touchdowns and rushed for five scores. Chambers (1,162 yards, 20 touchdowns) and Green (1,077 yards, nine touchdowns) have combined for 2,239 yards and 29 touchdowns, with Davis the leading receiver with 58 catches for 1,150 yards and 11 touchdowns. The Titans had a big offensive game last week in a 43-13 victory at Thomson, which lost in the state championship game to Cartersville last year. Blessed Trinity never had to punt, scoring on all four first half possessions and adding two touchdowns and a field goal in the second half along with a pair of turnovers.

Blessed Trinity piled up 360 yards rushing, with Green enjoying his best game of the season, carrying 23
times for 192 yards and two touchdowns. Chambers also scored twice and added 78 yards on 10 attempts.
Chambers scored the first two BT touchdowns on runs of 15 and 5 yards, and threw a halfback pass to
quarterback Smith for a 9-yard touchdown to make it 19-7. A 15-yard scoring run by Green gave the Titans a 26-7 halftime lead.

A fumble stopped a BT drive in Thomson territory in the third period, but the Titans expanded their lead
to 33-7 on a 16-yard pass from Smith to Chambers, one of just three completions in seven attempts for
the BT quarterback. Green accounted for the final Blessed Trinity touchdown on a 50-yard run to make it
40-7 early in the fourth quarter. After a Thomson touchdown, the Titans recovered an onside kick and scored the game’s final points on a 36-yard field goal by Ethan Chauvin.

The BT defense also had a big game, limiting Thomson to just 166 yards. Jacob Koelsch and J.D. Bertrand led the Titans’ defensive effort, with J.R. Bivens contributing two sacks and Chambers and Smith also playing key roles on the defensive end.

Mary Persons advanced to the semifinals with a 51-32 victory over Jefferson, which also reached the state semifinals last season. Like BT, the Bulldogs feature a strong junior class. Mary Persons’ quarterback, leading rusher and leading receiver are all juniors, along with about half of their main defensive players.

Both teams come into Friday’s game with 11-2 records. The Bulldogs’ only two losses came against AAAAAA semifinalist Lee County 21-17 in their season opener and to AAA semifinalist Peach County 35-14 at mid-season. Mary Persons had two close calls en route to an unbeaten region record, before coasting past Carver of Columbus 27-0 and Baldwin 39-14 in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Running back Quen Wilson has rushed for 410 yards in the playoffs, including 213 yards and four touchdowns last week against Jefferson. Both Wilson and Bralen Harvey have broken touchdown runs of longer than 50 yards the last two weeks, and quarterback J.T. Hartage had two completions of longer than 50 yards against Jefferson.

Like BT, the Bulldogs pass sparingly, with Hartage putting up similar numbers to Smith for the season
(1,770 yards, 18 touchdowns), with the team averaging just under 200 yards rushing per game. While the Titans have emerged as a state contender since McFarlin took over as head coach in 2011, Mary Persons has been a perennial playoff team for decades. The Bulldogs have won region titles each of the last three seasons, making their deepest playoff run last year. Until reaching the quarterfinals in 2012, they had not been past the second round since 1998.

Blessed Trinity has made it to at least the second round in all seven of its seasons under McFarlin, and
advanced to at least the quarterfinals for a fifth straight year. The Titans have already won games this season against two of the three teams that have dealt them their most disheartening playoff losses since 2011, opening the season with a 28-0 victory over Westminster, the winning team in the 2015 state championship overtime game.

If BT wins Friday night, the Titans will face a familiar foe in the state championship game Dec. 9 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Friday’s other semifinal matches long-time rivals Marist and St. Pius in a battle of DeKalb Catholic schools. The Titans defeated St. Pius 35-21 early in the season and lost to Marist 25-24 late in the regular season in the game that decided the Region 7-AAAA championship.

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