Apaches Drop Home Opener to No.12 Georgia Military College

By Chase Upton

Tyler, Texas– Tyler Junior College's football team dropped their home opener Saturday as they fell to No.12 Georgia Military College 35-10.

Georgia Military received the opening kickoff and TJC's defense attempted to set the tone early in this perfect, 82-degree, sunny Saturday afternoon showdown. The Apache did just that, opening the game with a tackle for loss and shutting down Georgia Military's opening drive by forcing a three-and-out.

The Apaches opened the scoring with 3:23 remaining in the first quarter by way of a 39-yard field goal by all-American sophomore kicker Christian Baxter and would hold that lead until the end of the first quarter.

GMC put their first points on the board when freshman running back Keenan Phillips ran in a 12-yard TD on third and eight to give the Bulldogs a 7-3 advantage with 11:53 left to go in the first half. Just over a minute later at the 10:39 mark redshirt sophomore quarterback Josh Thomas broke away for a 26-yard run, Thomas was then hit late by a GMC player to move the TJC offense into the red zone.

On the very next play, redshirt sophomore RB Lavarion Logan broke the edge and punched in a 15-yard TD putting the Apaches up 10-7 with 10:19 remaining in the first half, and would ride that lead to the end of the first half.

Tempers flared on the Apache sideline before the conclusion of the second quarter when freshman RB Bryce Burgess ran the ball to the sideline and was blatantly hit after going out of bounds, this drew multiple flags and set up Georgia Military to start the second half kicking off from the 10-yard line.

The Bulldogs came out of the half firing on all cylinders as they scored 28 unanswered points en route to handing TJC their second loss of the season.

TJC falls to 0-2 and looks to bounce back in their next showdown at 7 p.m. Sep. 14 as they take on No. 5 Trinity Valley Community College (1-0) at Christus TMF Stadium to open Southwest Junior College Football Conference play. This game will be streamed on ESPN+ as their NJCAA game of the week.