South Walton beats Baker in shootout

SANTA ROSA BEACH - Cody Adams bulled his way to pay dirt from 8 yards out to lead South Walton to a 6-0 win over Baker in the second quarter of Monday's District 1-2B shootout, giving the Seahawks the district title.

Baker won the right to meet South Walton for the title with a 6-0 win over Vernon in the first quarter of the shootout. The Gators are the
district runner-up.

But the night belonged to the home team, as the Seahawks made history with their first football title.

Adams appeared to be stopped for a 3-yard loss on his game-winning run. Surrounded by a host of Gator defenders, the 205-pound quarterback pushed through the pile for the score with 6:50 left in the quarter.

"I was just thinking, 'Don't go down,'" Adams said. "I have to find a way to score here so we can win the district championship.

"It's a big deal to win. We finally got it done."

Seahawk coach David Barron has come to expect the unexpected from Adams.

"We always accuse him of making up plays," Barron said. "But he's a football player and that's what football players do.

"This is what we've been building for for four years and it's what we needed. Now the rest of the folks that come along behind them
have a high bar to reach."

Before the Seahawk offense got started, it was the defense that did the job, holding the Gators to a minus-2 yards on their first possession. A steady diet of fullback Bryant Adams, mixed in with some plays from

David Bazylak, allowed the Seahawks to move the ball 44 yards to set up the Adams' touchdown.

Baker tried to answer when Marcus Jones broke off a 54-yard run to give the Gators a first down at the Seahawk 25. That was the extent of the
Baker offense; on the next play, the Gators fumbled the handoff exchange from Cameron Domangue to Jones, and Tyler Brielmayer recovered it for the Seahawks.

From there it was just a matter of South Walton running the ball with Cody Adams and Bazylak to kill the clock and seal the win.

In their win over the Yellow Jackets, the Gators took advantage of three Vernon penalties for 28 yards on the game-winning drive that
covered 48 yards.

The rest was by Domangue, who had a run of 19 yards and scored the winner from 8 yards out.

The real story of the quarter was the Baker defense that twice turned the Yellow Jackets away on fourth-down plays.

Blake Bollinger was a force in the middle as the Gators shut down Vernon's inside running game of Belton Snider and John Johnson.

When the Yellow Jackets were forced to pass, Christian Mainor broke up third- and fourth-down passes on Vernon's final possession to help seal the win for the Gators.

"I was real proud of the way we played against Vernon," Baker coach Bob Kellogg said. "We got after a very good football team and shut
them down, which was hard for us to do the first time.

"We didn't play real well in the second quarter. I don't know if we just weren't as focused, but we made some mistakes. But the biggest
problem we had against them is they (the Seahawks) are just so big."

Kellogg was philosophical about the second-place finish. "I told the kids you are in the playoffs and everybody starts 0-0," he said. "If you win you keep on playing, and if you lose you go home."