Lakeside bounces back in blowout fashion against Bradwell Institute

Lakeside held both their homecoming and senior night events Friday, but it won’t be their final home game after the Panthers clinched the two-seed in Region 1-AAAAA with a 59-20 win over Bradwell Institute Friday night. 

The Panthers found the end zone often in the first half, and Ty Jones got the scoring started with a 21-yard pass to Mikeal Grissom. 

A quick three-and-out led to a field goal off of the foot of William Brandenburg, giving the Panthers a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. 

BJ Grissom took advantage of a bad punt from Bradwell, and on the following play, took it 20 yards for a score. 

Defense gets offensive

At this point, it was 17-0 Lakeside, then came one of the craziest sequences one could witness. 

The Panthers’ Lathan Gardner intercepted a Tiger pass and took it in for the score. A few plays later, BJ Grissom snagged an errant Tiger pass and also scored, extending the lead to 31-0. 

About 19 seconds after that occurred, Corbin Velez picked up a Bradwell fumble and returned it for six (plus the extra point) to push Lakeside’s lead to 38-0. 

So, in about a span of two game minutes, Lakeside scored three defensive touchdowns.

The Panthers finally got the ball back on offense after all of that and Jack Thexton capped off a long drive with a six-yard score. 

Bradwell Institute finally got on the board when it returned a kickoff for a touchdown and cut the lead to 45-6. 

Cruising to the finish line

It was an impressive first half of football from a team that faced a setback a week ago with its 61-34 loss to Brunswick during the team’s third game in eight days. 

Not much happened in the second half because of the running clock, but Ty Jones did catch a pass that went 72 yards, and the Panthers picked up their fourth defensive score of the game with a 99-yard scoop-n-score.

Lakeside (8-1, 6-1) will get to rest next Friday before traveling to Statesboro (4-4, 2-3) on Nov. 8 for its final regular season game. Lakeside will gear up to host the three-seed from Region 5-AAAAA in the first round of the Class AAAAA playoffs. 

Statesboro defeated South Effingham 41-7 Friday night.