THOMASVILLE — The Thomasville Bulldogs were blown out 55-14 by a Brooks County Trojan team led by a high-flying passing attack at Veterans Memorial Stadium on Friday night.

The Trojans (8-2, 6-0 in Region 1-AA) were keyed by a seemingly unstoppable aerial attack, with quarterback Demontay Jones throwing for four touchdowns and 293 yards, with three of those scoring strikes to Nate Vick. Poor tackling and loose coverage led to wide receivers running freely down the field all night.

“We just got to get a little bit older, get better,” Thomasville coach Leroy Ryals said. “We’ve got to get more physically tougher there’s no doubt. We don’t tackle very well.”

The Bulldogs (1-8, 1-4) kept it close in the first quarter. A beautiful fake field goal, with Jacobi Hayes standing all alone right near the sideline for an easy pitch and catch touchdown from JT Rice, put the Bulldogs on the board late in the period. They were briefly on top 8-7.

“It’s something I’ve entertained for a while,” Ryals said. “Jacobi (Hayes) and JT (Rice) did a good job executing it. We thought we had a look that we liked and we did it.”

Though momentum was seemingly on the Bulldogs side, Toriano Porterfield returned the kickoff to retake the lead for the Trojans.

The Bulldog offense found a little bit of success in the air, with Rice throwing for 131 yards and completing 14 passes, but the offense got continually bogged down in the red zone.

“We get down there and lay an egg in the red zone,” Ryals said. “You can’t do that.”

Despite the deficit, the Bulldogs had a few players continue to make plays late. Tori Sapp ran hard, ending up with 84 yards on the ground.

As the season winds down, Thomasville has to try to find answers about what went wrong this year.

“We’ve definitely got to do some soul searching in this football program about what we want as a football program,” Ryals said. “How we want to be and what kind of legacy we want to leave because right now this is not what I envisioned coming to Thomasville.”

The Bulldogs need a win against Early County Friday night on the road to prevent a the worst record in school history at only one win.

Brooks County, meanwhile, is off until beginning the playoffs Nov. 13.