VALDOSTA – After beating the Norcross Blue Devils in a thrilling 35-34 second-round playoff game last week, the Lowndes Vikings have won eight straight.

To make it nine tonight, the 10-2 Vikings must beat the No. 1 ranked team in the state and the third in the country, Collins Hill, in a quarterfinal showdown at the Concrete Palace.

But with 2 minutes to go last week, it looked like the Vikings’ winning streak and season might come to an end. 

Despite missing nearly the whole first half due to injury, quarterback Jacurri Brown saved the day again for the Vikings by throwing the game-winning touchdown to Kris Thomas with 1:17 left to take a one-point lead. 

If that wasn’t enough, Brown also came in on defense for the final possession and caught an interception to seal the game himself. 

Brown is still questionable to start this week, but even with the Miami commit under center, the Vikings have to play clean football if they want to make it to the semifinals. 

“When you get into the playoffs it’s about survival,” said Vikings head coach Jamey DuBose. “If your guys want to survive more than the other team that night and make the fewest mistakes, you’ll have a good opportunity to win it. You can throw the underdog status out.”

Whether the Vikings are underdogs or not, the Eagles won’t be picked to lose by many. They’re unbeaten coming into this contest after handling Pebblebrook 48-6 last week to improve to 12-0.

The Eagles haven’t lost since last year’s state title game, a 38-14 defeat to Grayson. 

To get there though, last year’s Eagles had to go through the Vikings in the semi-finals, a game the Vikings lost 14-31.

No matter who people say the best team in the state is this year, the Vikings have been wanting this rematch. 

“We want that opportunity…. If you would’ve told me last year we’d have Collins Hill again this year with another shot, then yeah, we want that,” DuBose said. 

However, this isn’t the same Collins Hill squad that beat the Vikings last year, – well, actually it mostly is – they’re just older. 

The Eagles returned most of their starters on both sides of the ball from a team that made the state championship game last year, but juniors have turned into seniors, added weight and strength, and more importantly added experience.

DuBose made a point that the Vikings had the opposite scenario play out, returning only two starters on defense and a handful on offense.

“The only thing that we got that is advantage us is the Concrete Palace,” DuBose said. “Our fans – the noise and the atmosphere – they can’t practice that all week.

“We’ve been to Atlanta; the crowds up there just aren’t the same as in South Georgia. It’s a whole different world,” DuBose said, referring to last year when the Vikings traveled to the Atlanta area for their final three rounds. 

“I really think that can play an affect sometimes. So I really hope our fans show up – I know they will. We make this kind of like an NFL crowd, it gets to be a rowdy environment. That’s advantage us.”

That’s an advantage the Viking’s didn’t have last year, when junior quarterback Sam Horn was comfortable at home torching the Vikings, completing 70% of his 54 pass attempts for 371 yards and four touchdowns. 

Now Horn is a senior and he’s ranked the seventh best quarterback prospect in the nation, and the sixth ranked player in the state of Georgia. 

And he isn’t even the star of this Collins Hill squad. 

The No. 1 player in the nation is Travis Hunter according to rivals.com, a star defensive back and the Eagles’ leading receiver to boot, despite missing four games near the end of the season. 

Travis Hunter caught passes up and down the field against the Vikings last year, totaling 183 receiving yards and three scores, to go along with an interception off Jacurri Brown.

The two star seniors for the Eagles have connected on 50 completions this season for 788 yards and six touchdowns. That’s nearly 16 yards per catch.

Earlier last week Hunter was awarded Athlete of the Year for Region 8-7A, while Sam Horn was named Offensive Player of the Year. 

Cam Pedro is another offensive weapon for Horn that is going D1, and 6’6 Ethan Davis probably would be too if he weren’t still a junior. 

Pedro and Davis are tied with Hunter for the most receiving touchdowns, each with six on the season, and have racked up 679 and 579 receiving yards respectively on the season. 

The four make up the heart of the Eagles very potent passing game. DuBose’s plan for his defense revolves around stopping these deep threats. 

“Big plays will hurt you with a team like them. You can’t let them go two snaps and a score a touchdown,” DuBose said. “You got to make them snap the ball 10 or 11 times and hope for a mistake along the way and not let their receivers get behind us.”

Teams don’t get this far in the post-season without being strong on both sides of the ball, but I’d be remise to not mention the Eagles’ defense, which is arguably the strength of the team. 

They’ve given up single digit touchdowns over the whole season including an eight week stretch (including a bye) to close the season where the Eagles defense let their opponents into the end zone only twice.

In the first two rounds of the playoffs, they’ve allowed 13 and then 6 points respectively, but 12 of those points have come in garbage time in the fourth quarter of the two blowouts. 

The key to the Vikings is keeping the game close until then. 

They’ve shown time and again the ability to win a close game by outplaying their opponent late in the game, and when things get tough, there’s no place like home. 

“They got good players, they got good coaches and they’ll have a good scheme. They’re not where they are with bad people,” DuBose said. “But we are at home, and we feel very comfortable when we’re sitting in our house.”

Kickoff for tonight’s game is scheduled for 7:30.