Roswell Take On Westlake in High School Football Semifinals

By Mike Blum

When the Class 7A football playoffs began, six teams were generally considered to have realistic hopes of taking home a state championship.

If Roswell can get past Westlake in the semifinals Friday night, the Hornets will make it to the championship game without having to face any of the five other primary contenders.

With neither school having stadiums large enough to host the game, the GHSA selected Atlanta’s Lakewood Stadium as the neutral field site for the Dec. 2 match.

The Hornets caught a favorable draw, with four of the top six teams in the opposite bracket. Unbeaten Norcross, the second highest-rated team in Roswell’s half, was overwhelmed in the second round by Lowndes, the third highest-ranked team on the Hornets’ side.

Lowndes went out the following week against Westlake, one of the true surprise teams in any of the eight state playoff brackets.

The Lions were unranked the entire season after losing three of their first four games against a trio of strong non-region opponents. Westlake closed out the regular season with six straight wins to finish first in Region 2-AAAAAAA, but had several close calls, including a 10-7 win over Pebblebrook, a team Roswell crushed 45-7 in the first round of the playoffs.

Westlake has continued its penchant for winning by close margins in the playoffs, edging Etowah 24-23 in the first round and Lowndes 24-21 last week, both on field goals in the final five seconds. Both wins came in the Lions’ home field in College Park, and will be the site of Friday’s semifinals, as Westlake won the coin flip for home field advantage.

The Lions (10-3) are riding an 8-game winning, but have taken very different paths to victory in the eight victories, especially in the playoffs. They rallied from a 17-0 deficit against Etowah and almost let a 21-0 lead slip away against Lowndes, which scored 149 points in its two playoff wins.

Westlake used an outstanding defensive led by several major college prospects to keep Lowndes scoreless into the second half before the Vikings mounted a comeback. The Lions also played well defensively in a 41-7 playoff win over South Gwinnett and in a 6-2 regular season loss to McEachern, which was narrowly defeated 31-28 by unbeaten Mill Creek in the 7A quarterfinals last week.

But two of the Lions’ region opponents scored in the 30s, while the offense has rebounded from a slow start, scoring 10 points or fewer in four of their first seven games. The Lions are in the semifinals for the first time after reaching the quarterfinals last year, winning their first playoff games in a decade.

The school was formed from the consolidation of south Fulton schools Lakeshore and Westwood in the late 1980's, but this will be the first time Westlake has played a north Fulton school other than North Springs or Riverwood.

The Hornets need a win Friday to again reach the championship game, losing in the finals last year to Colquitt County, which was steamrolled by state No. 1 Grayson 49-21 last week. The Rams will host No. 3 Mill Creek in an all-Gwinnett semifinal, with Friday’s winners meeting for the state title Dec. 10 in the Georgia Dome.

Roswell (13-0) is ranked second behind Grayson and has rolled to three playoff victories despite a slow first quarter in a 45-7 win over Pebblebrook and a shaky third period in a 42-21 victory last week against North Cobb after dominating in the first half.

North Cobb was the first Roswell playoff opponent to score against the Hornets’ defensive starters, with the Warriors hitting two big plays for touchdowns and capitalizing on a fumble recovery inside the Roswell 20. The Warriors had minus-25 yards rushing but had some success throwing against the Hornets, and were the first team to score more than 14 points against the Roswell defense, which has a total of 15 quarterback sacks the past two weeks.

Running back Sheldon Evans, who missed all of the Pebblebrook game and the second half of the Peachtree Ridge game with an ankle injury, rushed for 161 yards in the win over North Cobb, 101 in the second half. Evans has more than 1,500 yards this season and over 5,200 yards with 64 rushing touchdowns in his three seasons as a starter.

Quarterback Malik Willis has played some of his best football this season in the playoffs, passing for 740 yards and nine touchdowns the last three weeks and overcoming three interceptions in the first half against Peachtree Ridge. Willis has also been a dangerous running threat, gaining 290 yards with four TDs in the playoffs, displaying both agility and breakaway speed.

Willis played quarterback last season for Westlake before transferring to Roswell for his senior year. Roswell has a talented group of receivers, with seven different players catching touchdown passes in the playoffs from Willis, two each by Jayden Comma and Christian “Scooby” Ford.

The Hornets are 27-1 the last two seasons under coach John Ford, who went 8-4 with a playoff victory in 2014, his second season as head coach.

Image via Patch