Four county teams remain in 2nd round of playoffs
There are seven high school football teams in Madison County. Five made the playoffs. Four made it to the second round.
Trinity Christian Academy asserted their dominance in the first half over First Assembly Christian School and came away with a 35-6 victory.
"I'm really proud of the way we played in the first half, but we need to put together four solid quarters of play," said TCA head coach Darren Bowling after the win. "Our defense did well, and of course our offense did too. Special teams too.
"But we had chances in the second half to put this game away, and we didn't take advantage of them."
TCA's game was played at Jackson Christian's Ronnie Fowler Field because TCA's field has had drainage issues this year and Jackson Christian's field is artificial turf.
That means that Jackson Christian head coach Darby Palmer was there watching the game as well.
The Eagles had a first-round bye, and their opponent for this week - which is Grace Academy out of Franklin - had been determined the night before because their opponent, Providence Christian, plays its home games at Middle Tennessee State's stadium and MTSU needed them to not play on Friday.
"We had a good week," Palmer said about his team with the bye week. "We gave them Monday and (Friday) off and had three hard practices Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
"We spent all that time working on us because we didn't know who we'll play next week until last night. And there was good energy because the guys know we're in the early stages of trying to accomplish what we really want to accomplish."
TCA and Jackson Christian are both in the quarterfinals of Division II-A's playoffs.
University School of Jackson is in the Division II-AA quarterfinals after having outscored Webb School of Bell Buckle 56-34 last week to set up a matchup with Battle Ground Academy.
BGA will bring a productive offense and defense to Carlock Stadium that will be another big test for the Bruins, who've recorded their two biggest wins of the year in the last two weeks.
Jackson Central-Merry outlasted Summertown on the road last week with a 28-26 victory, and the Cougars' reward is to not have to travel as far, but they go to Region 6-2A champion Milan.
Milan has one loss, and it was at home to JCM.
The Bulldogs will look for revenge while the Cougars will try to make history repeat itself as they attempt to do things this program hasn't accomplished in 19 years.
Of the four teams, two are playing at home (Jackson Christian and USJ) and another is playing in neighboring Gibson County (JCM). TCA is the only team having to travel a long way as Columbia is about two hours away from Jackson on Highway 412.
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
