A 1-2 Cedartown Bulldogs hot off the heels of their win off New Manchester last Friday night return to The Doc this evening to face off against a former state champion showing signs of bouncing back after going undefeated through the opening of the regular season.

Cedartown’s final non-region game of the season kicks off at 7:30 p.m. and fans who weren’t lucky enough to get limited seating tickets can listen in on WGAA radio as the Bulldogs host the Heard County Braves to kick off the October stretch of the season.

Heard County comes into the contest at 4-0 and just having defeated Darlington in a 35-30 finish last week, and brings to the game opportunities aplenty to come up with another win over a Bulldogs team that has over the past few games been getting better.

Cedartown, coming into the game off their own 24-0 win over New Manchester on the road last week, has held their last three opponents to 35 overall (including last week’s shutout) while the Heard County defense has mainly struggled to keep opposing offenses from putting points on the board. In their four wins, the Braves gave up 85 points, and three of those saw 20 or more scored on the Heard defense.

That is counterbalanced with an offense that has put up 126 points on the year so far.

Don’t be fooled, however: the Bulldogs are likely going to have more depth than the Braves and are the biggest team Heard County has faced so far this year.

Expect the Bulldogs impact players of the past games to come in and get a chance to show off what they’re able to do: sophomores Harlem Diamond and Patrick Gardner will be key for the Bulldogs offense establishing a run early against Heard County, and Jayden Johnson will likely have the chance to air out the ball some against the Braves as well.

Notes on the game

This is just the third time that Heard County and Cedartown are facing one another in the two program’s histories, with each team gaining a win over the other in the previous two contests. Back in 2014, the Bulldogs took a 45-21 home win over Heard County, while the Braves traded places when Cedartown drove down in 2015 to play and fell 24-15.

Look for Gio Jacobo to play a key role tonight on special teams after his kicking game has been on-point so far this year through the first three contests of the year. Jacobo scored the first points last week against New Manchester with a 36-yard boot through the uprights.

The contest against Heard is the last of the non-region games of the year before Cedartown takes a break, heading into an off-week before Homecoming against Pickens County.