North Oconee sets sights on perfect season

BOGART — North Oconee gave itself an early Christmas present last week by winning the subregion title.

This week the Titans want even better goodies as they go for the Region 8-AA title and the first perfect regular season in school history.

“We’ve got a lot on the line from here on out,” North Oconee lineman Joseph Scelfo said. “It’s basically win or go home. It’s a good way to go into the playoffs. It gets some energy behind us and gets some confidence, so we can make a run in the playoffs.”

The North Oconee-Banks County game will also carry a somber note. The two teams will honor Shawn Smith during the game. Smith graduated from Banks County and was an assistant coach at North Oconee when he died in an automobile accident in 2007. Tonight’s winner will also get the Shawn Smith Bowl traveling trophy.

“(We) resurrected that trophy for this game,” North Oconee coach Terry Tuley said. “It’s really special any time somebody is killed in the line of duty, you don’t ever forget their memory. We were questioning earlier in the week because these kids don’t even know him. There’s no question about that. Our kids don’t know the kids that went 0-19, but they understand their plight and understand a little bit about what they went through and went out and played some games to help even the scales, if you will, against some of the opponents and stuff like that. It’s a significant part of our thought process.”

Region 8-AA South Division champion North Oconee (9-0, 6-0 in Region 8-AA) plays North Division champion Banks County (7-2, 4-1) at 7:30 p.m. today at Banks County. The winner goes to the playoffs as a No. 1 seed and the loser is a No. 2 seed. Last week, North Oconee beat nemesis Elbert County 17-6 to claim the subregion title.

“We realize that if we don’t beat Banks, then beating Elbert doesn’t really mean much,” North Oconee running back David Pinkerton said. “For us, we’re really excited about being the first undefeated team in school history and we know what it means for us to beat Banks going into the playoffs.”

North Oconee had spent the entire season with the Week 9 game against Elbert County sitting in the back of its mind. Now that the Titans have that victory secured, they have to quickly re-orient themselves toward Banks County and the upcoming postseason.

“The Elbert game was one that everybody wanted and it was destined to be there from last year’s calendar,” Tuley said. “The most important part about this is, we can wrap up the first undefeated regular season in the history of North Oconee. We can wrap up the first region football championship in North Oconee history. It also gets you that No. 1 seed and based on the calendar and the schedule and everything, potentially with a good coin flip, you play at home all the way to the (Georgia) Dome, so it’s got a lot of ramifications.”

The closest North Oconee has ever come to a perfect regular season was in 2007 when it lost to Ola in the opener before winning nine straight. The Elbert County and Banks County games have given the Titans a chance to play in a playoff atmosphere before the postseason even begins.

“That win against Elbert was pretty sweet,” Scelfo said. “We were talking after the game that the Elbert game was the best atmosphere we’ve ever been around. We had so much riding on the game. Our fans were into it. We lost last year. Our fans were crazy. I’ll remember it forever.”