Published: November 08, 2009 12:23 am      

Green Waves win title in overtime

Four quarters weren’t enough to determine Saturday’s 11-12 year old city-county football championship game between Valley Point and Dalton.

Cody Gillean rushed for scores in each of the game’s two overtimes to help Valley Point’s Green Waves secure a 22-14 victory over the Cardinals at Bruin Stadium in Tunnel Hill.

The win capped an undefeated season for the Whitfield County Parks and Recreation Department’s Green Waves (9-0), who handed the Dalton Parks and Recreation Department Cardinals (7-2) their only defeats this season. Valley Point won 20-8 in an earlier meeting.

After a low-scoring affair in regulation, each team got the ball on the opposition’s 10 and had four downs to score in overtime. That’s when Gillean took over.

“I just followed my blockers and they led me right into the end zone,” Gillean said. “We all had hope that we would win and we pulled it off.”

Dalton took the lead on Zeke Cobb’s 62-yard run with seven minutes left in the second quarter. With two minutes left in the third, Valley Point’s Cole Shelton scored on a 1-yard run after a 15-yard run on the previous play.

In the first overtime period, Dalton’s Travis Nielson scored from the 1 on fourth down and Edwin Palacios kicked for a two-point conversion. Gillean answered with his run on the first play and Maverick Curtis tied the game with the two-point kick.

The Green Waves took the ball first in the second overtime and duplicated their success from the first extra period, with Gillean scoring on the first play and Curtis kicking for two points. Dalton then went to the air on its possessions, throwing three incomplete passes before Shelton’s interception on fourth down clinched a Valley Point win.

“Our kids have a lot of fight in them,” Green Waves coach Donnie Shelton said. “I’ve had these kids since they were 5 and they’ve always played exceptionally hard. This game here was the hardest we’ve ever been through.”

Cardinals coach Bob Hardaway was pleased to know his team provided that sort of test.

“This is a testament to our kids fighting to the very end,” he said. “Every week we got better and better and they were just committed to putting in hard work.”

• 9-10 WCPRD — Westside 8, Pleasant Grove 6: Luke Shiflett scored on a 20-yard run and Grant Terrell completed a pass to Shiflett for the two-point conversion to lift the Hammers (10-1) over the Eagles (10-1). Devin Wellborn scored on a 25-yard pass from Jay Jones for Pleasant Grove’s only score.

• 7-8 WCPRD — Beaverdale 20, New Hope 14: Dominique Sistrunk scored on runs of 25, 15 and 5 yards and added two extra-point runs to score all of the Wildcats’ (10-2) points in a winning effort. New Hope (11-2) scored on a 35-yard run by Andrew Sage and a 30-yard run by Christopher Cunningham. Sage also completed a pass to Cunningham for a two-point conversion.