By Will Grice

For the Forsyth County News

South Forsyth dominated on both sides of the ball Thursday night, opening region play with a 35-13 win over Lambert. 

The War Eagles started fast, scoring on their first two drives of the game. South Forsyth quarterback Ty Watkins found receiver Joshua Nelson on two separate instances for touchdowns to give the War Eagles an early 14-0 lead in the first quarter.

“Our skill group played unbelievable tonight,” South head coach Troy Morris said. “Ty made plays with his legs and throwing it. Everyone contributed tonight and made a bunch of plays.”

Lambert seemed to have played themselves out of a score after a fourth-and-goal attempt from the 2-yard line came up short of the end zone. Lambert caught a break, though, as Watkins made his only mistake of the night by fumbling the ball, which the Longhorns recovered.

Lambert quarterback James Tyre threw a touchdown pass to Brennan Schneider on the next play, cutting the deficit to 14-6. 

It seemed as though Lambert had found a way to steal the momentum back and just needed their defense to come up with a stop. 

However, the next South Forsyth drive was a dominant 71-yard touchdown drive; every yard being gained on the ground. Watkins scored on a 42-yard quarterback scramble, which was his third of four touchdowns on the night.

The Longhorn offense could not get anything going after their first touchdown, having to punt the ball back to an offense that could smell blood in the water.

The War Eagles dominated on the ground once again, going 77 yards for the touchdown with running back Gavin Morris scoring the touchdown to extend the lead to 28-6. The War Eagles rushed for 177 yards in the first half.

“They were more physical than us on the line of scrimmage,” Lambert head coach Tommy Watson said. “When you do that, you can run the ball like they did.”

The War Eagles had the Longhorns in a chokehold heading into halftime up 28-6 and used the second half to slowly squeeze the life out of their opponent.

The second half picked up right where the first half left off, with Lambert having to punt the ball on offense and South capitalizing by scoring a touchdown. Watkins completed a touchdown pass to Morris to put the game out of reach.

“We had a great plan tonight for their quarterback and [Kojo Antwi],” said Troy Morris. “We had a plan to take them out of the game and our kids executed it so well.”

Antwi was held to only 49 yards on the night, and Tyre only had 60 yards rushing. Running back Ethan Terry was the leading rusher of the night with 119 yards.

The Longhorns even managed to rush for more than 200 yards, but most of them came in the second half when the game was already won.

South [3-1, 1-0 Region 6-7A] will travel to Lithia Springs Oct. 1, while Lambert [4-0, 0-1 Region 6-7A] will try to rebound Oct. 1 at home against Gainesville.