Photo Gallery: Lithia Springs Takes JV to Play New Manchester

The football program, and the school itself, is in its first year of existence. On Friday, the Jaguars, comprised of mostly freshman and sophomores, hosted the Lithia Springs junior varsity team for its first regular-season home game of the season.

New Manchester scored first, early in the first quarter, on a Ronnie Hall touchdown run. After tied the game at six, the two teams battled scorelessly until late in the fourth quarter when quarterback Tre Wilson squirted in fro the 1-yard line to give the Jaguars a 12-6 lead, and eventually the win.

"It was a big win for our kids," said New Manchester head coach Rob Cleveland. "We knew that Lithia would come in and give us everything they had, we gave them everything we had, it was just a great ball game that could have gone either way."

The game was back-and-forth all night. The Jaguars scored first with the Lions countering shortly thereafter. What ensued for the next almost three quarters was a battle in the trenches of two Douglas County football teams that didn't want to go away on the short end of the score.

"That was a gut check for our team," said Cleveland. "We needed a close game like that. Lithia got after us pretty big and it was a big night for our kids as far as growing up mentally and physically."

Cleveland assembled his players in the end zone following the win and told them it took a lot of guts, a lot of character and a lot of determination to pull out that win over Lithia Springs. And while his team has just two seniors, is in its infancy, and is still suffering the growing pains of a new program learning how to play football, Cleveland eluded to the fact that he's happy with the way things have started.

"This program is two games old, and it's 2-0."