BROOKLET - Southeast Bulloch jumped out to an early lead and never looked back as they defeated Beach, 44-19, Friday night at Fred Shaver field, solidifying their playoff chances heading into the season finale next week.

“We came away with a home win, a region win and a homecoming win and all of those things are really good,” said Jared Zito, SEB head coach.

The Yellow Jackets (7-2, 6-2) looked dominant early, holding the Bulldogs to a punt on their opening possession and even getting a hand on the punt that gave SEB great field position at the Bulldogs’ 34 yard line.

Five plays later, SEB’s Jayden Murphy took it in from nine yards out to give the Yellow Jackets an early 7-0 lead following a Thomas Edge PAT.

The Yellow Jackets surprised everyone with an onside kick on the following kickoff and a perfect bounce allowed the SEB to snag it at the Beach 43 yard line. 

“We practice it every week and we knew if they lined up a certain way and gave us an opportunity, we were going to kick it,” Zito said.

Four plays later, sophomore quarterback Rhett Morgan would complete the first of his two first half touchdowns, this one to Colby Smith from 31-yard outs to extend the lead to 14-0.

“We wanted to jump on them early and we were able to do that and get a couple of scores right off the bat.” 

Beach (4-5, 3-5) would respond on their next drive. Facing a third-and-21 from the SEB 44, the Bulldogs reached into their bag of trick plays. A backward pass to the right was followed by a pass back to the left to quarterback Javion Williams who sprinted through the SEB defense to trim the lead to 14-7.

It didn’t take long for SEB to respond and Morgan found Clay Williams behind the defense for a 43-yard score on the Jackets third play of the drive to extend the lead back to 14 points.

Murphy would add his second score of the night midway through the second quarter on a seven yard run  to extend the lead to 28-7. On the drive, Colby Smith broke off a 36-yard run that put him over 1,000 yards rushing on the year.

“He works really hard. He’s selfless and a really hard runner. He’s also a much better athlete than people realize,” Zito said. “We’ve got some other guys in the backfield that have been running hard and block for him and he’d be the first to point out all the other guys do for him.”

Smith would finish with 143 yards and a touchdown on the ground and add 112 yards receiving and two touchdowns on two receptions.

Beach, however, would respond late in the half. After stopping SEB on a fourth and one at their five yard line, the Bulldogs would go 95 yards, culminating with a 15 yard pass to the front of the end zone with just five seconds remaining to trim the lead to 28-13.

“We knew their quarterback was going to be elusive and they had some athletes,” Zito said. “The big thing on defense is we missed some tackles and that’s something we’re going to coach up, but our resilience in the second half and the way we responded after halftime, I’m really proud of that group.”

While the SEB defense held Beach scoreless in the third quarter, the Yellow Jacket offense struggled to find its rhythm coming out of halftime, punting twice and, as the quarter ended, facing a third down deep in their own half.

On the first play of the fourth quarter, however, Morgan dropped back to pass, looked left to draw the Bulldog defense that way and then whirled back to find Smith on the right side. Smith made a man miss and then raced 81 yards to score and extend the Yellow Jackets lead to 35-13.

“Every week Rhett is playing better and better,” Zito said of his quarterback. “He’s not playing like a sophomore anymore. He was able to throw the football a little bit tonight which, with what they were doing defensively, we had to. Every week he’s working and learning and growing and hopefully he’s playing his best football here as we head down the stretch.” 

Morgan would finish with 173 yards and three touchdowns on the night.

On the ensuing kickoff, however, Beach’s Chandler Reid fielded the ball at his own 38 and found an opening in the SEB defense. He split through the middle of the Yellow Jackets’ kick coverage and scored to cut the lead to 35-19 following a failed two-point conversion attempt.

The Yellow Jackets would put things away late with a Smith five yard touchdown run midway through the fourth quarter to extend their lead to 42-19. A snap over the punter's head late in the game resulted in a safety to account for the final margin of victory.

Defensively, the Yellow Jackets held Beach to 217 yards, including just 41 yards rushing on the night. 

Offensively, SEB put up 419 yards on the night, with Smith accounting for 255 yards from scrimmage.

Even with the win, Zito wasn’t ready to say the Yellow Jackets have secured a playoff spot in the new format that utilizes a power ranking system to fill out the playoff field.

“I know this, if we beat Groves next Friday we are going to be in the playoffs and hopefully things fall in our favor and we can play here,” he said.

That game against Groves will be back at Fred Shaver Field as the Yellow Jackets host Senior Night.