After losing to Cedartown 45-7 in its region opener last week, Allatoona was already facing a must-win game against Dalton to keep alive its chances of returning to the playoffs after missing out last year for the first time in 14 years.
Junior running backs Xavier Rucker and Ethan Corpus made sure the Buccaneers got that first victory in loaded Region 7-4A, rushing for a combined 426 yards and five touchdowns to lead Allatoona to a 42-29 victory Friday in Acworth.
Rucker ran for 243 yards on 18 carries and had touchdown runs of 42 and 25 yards. He ran for 162 yards on 10 carries in the second half to help Allatoona pull away. Corpus had 183 yards on 12 carries and scored on runs of 35, 13 and 39 yards.
“I think the biggest thing for us is we’ve gone back to what Allatoona football’s been built on, and that’s ground and pound,” Allatoona coach Brad Smith said. “We’ve got, I think, two of the best backs in the state. [Rucker] is as real as they get, and if they try to stop him you’ve got [Corpus] running the ball too. We challenged them at halftime. We felt like if we could get the ball going, they couldn’t really stop us. And we were able to come out here and put the foot down on them.”