5A Playoffs – Second Round Game

Graves County (9-2) at South Warren (10-1)

This will be the third meeting between these two teams.  And all three will be played in the playoffs.  The first 2 were in the Regional Quarterfinals with South winning 38-12 in 2017 at home and 36-7 in 2022 at Graves County.  Graves County comes into this game on a 5-game win streak and have had a solid season thus far only falling at Paducah Tilghman early in the year and at Rash Stadium (vs Owensboro) to start district play.  The Spartans come into this game on a 6-game win streak and have only fallen at home to a very good DuPont Manual squad.  Two good teams!  Second Round coming up!!

Graves County Eagles Information

The Eagles at led by QB Kaden Gregory who has played really well this season.  The SR has over 1,600 yards on the year with 20 TDs vs 5 INTs.  His main targets are Lincoln Acree with 43 catches for 675 yards and 9 TDs and Braden Woodward with 23 catches for 416 yards and 5 TDs.  Graves County’s leading rusher is SR Denis Marrs with over 100 carries on the year for roughly 750 yards and 8 TDs.  Defensively, SR Kace Tubbs leads the way at LB with 117 tackles (11 for loss) and 2 sacks.

The Eagles have been fairly balanced this season passing about 200 times for just over 1,600 yards and rushing about 300 times for nearly 1,600 yards.  This is a good stat for Graves as a team overly dependant on the run game has historically have NOT faired well vs most South Warren defenses. 

But Graves County had a tough game vs Greenwood last night and led 14-9 deep in the 4^th Quarter.  That won’t get it done at South Warren.

South Warren Information

South Warren continues to be led by QB Bryce Button, who has had a fine senior campaign with just under 2,000 yards on the year with 28 TDs vs 8 INTs.  He is also the 3^rd leading rusher on the team with nearly 200 yards on the year and 7 more TDs.  Button has been involved with 36 of the 50 total TDs the Spartans have scored this year – that’s 72% of the TDs on the season.  Impressive.  2-Way Star Colton Veltcamp has 8 receiving TDs on the year to go along with 11 sacks and 53 total tackles on the year (including 20 for loss). 

So, South should be running on all cylinders for this game.  They only gave up 71 yards offense to a pretty good Apollo team, as the South DLine feasted on the Apollo Oline and disrupted everything they tried to do.  And Colton Veltcamp is a super player playing his best right now for South Warren with what the BG Daily News reported as 5 QB sacks and 1 TD catch on the night.  Sell some popcorn and there’s nothing left for the versatile Spartan!

Game Information

This game will take place in Bowling Green at South Warren High School.  Graves County will make the roughly 2.5 hour trip over to Bowling Green to take on the Spartans.

For South Warren, just keep the ball in Button’s hands and let Veltcamp and the defense keep causing problems for the Eagles offense.  That’s South’s modus operandi! 

For Graves County, you are the underdog and not many will pick you to win this game.  But the Eagles are a really tough-minded team.  I recall another tough-minded Graves County team that came to Bowling Green in November of 2014 and shocked the State by beating my Purples 7-0 when NO ONE gave them a shot.  Now that team had the GREAT Cody Crider, who carried that Eagles team to that win and really all the way to the State Championship game.  It will take this kind of effort to win at South this Friday and a much better one than they gave last Friday night.  Good luck Eagles.

Who you got in this game and why?

South Warren 28-7

18 minutes ago, TimeWillTell said:

South Warren 28-7

I hate it, but that seems like about right.

35-0 Spartans 

Lincoln Acre pulls off a couple of big plays to keep it some what a game!

32-17 South Warren

I think South Warren runs the clock here with around a 42-14 final. 

42-14 SW with a score coming late for Graves. 

Eagles are going to have to play a rated perfect 10! out of 10! game to win this one. 

But, since the Owensboro game something changed with our Eagles defense. They have been on fire only allowing 10! points per game since then. I also read a stat they have gotten an int in every game this season. Maybe it was competition, maybe it was growing pains as the defense has a ton of sophomores starting. 

Offense has been solid all year, until last night. Credit to Greenwood defense. It did seem when we added an extra blocker things started opening up. Huge credit goes to the coaching staff making that in game adjustment! 

I'm a fan, so of course I believe our kids can get it done. I saw the original poster say Crider carried us to State. While he is in imo the best Eagle all time, with all due respect to him, but that defense as a whole carried us that playoff run. There were a few college players on that defense. In that playoff run teams averaged 10! points per game on that defense. Hmm 10 points? 

For a team and program like Graves you have to make your run in cold November games on the defensive side of the ball like they did last time. We aren’t going to outscore 4.4 athletes very often. So hit them hard, hit them early, and take the love and will of the game out of them. Seen them do it before. In fact, it was 10! Years ago! 

Eagles 14

SW 10

Graves will have to hit some big plays to score in my opinion. SW is a different monster defensively. 
 

I do think Graves can keep it close because they are a tough minded group who will play their tails off but in the end SW is just too much. 
 

SW 35

Graves 14. 

South by 21 graves has been good at times but South will be to much.

Bump.

Comparing like opponents, which I know can mean nothing.

South Warren beat Greenwood 42-0
Graves only beat Greenwood 21-9

South Warren beat Apollo 38-7
Graves beat Apollo 46-28

Intriguing score from earlier in the year
South Warren beat Henderon 43-33
Graves scrimmaged them and I believe it was 21-0 when starters came out.

Any insights on that Henderson/South Warren game? Did Henderson score late?

1 hour ago, common_sense_eagle said:

Intriguing score from earlier in the year
South Warren beat Henderon 43-33
Graves scrimmaged them and I believe it was 21-0 when starters came out.

Any insights on that Henderson/South Warren game? Did Henderson score late?

Couple things on the South v Henderson game:

1. Henderson led 23-18 at halftime.

2. South got yelled at and came out inspired.

3.  Bryce Button made some HUGE plays to create the win for South.

4. That game was way back in August.  South is different from that team now, as I'm sure Graves is as well.

Since we are comparing scores:

 

Owensboro beat Graves 42-7

BG running clocked Owensboro by 2nd quarter. Final was 35-14

SW beat BG 27-21

 

Prediction

42-14 SW

Game is being moved to Warren Central due to field conditions.

Does this have any impact on the game?