By: Jason Bishop

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

It was a very straining year for the Camden County Wildcats. It was a year full of ups and downs and year that saw Camden decimated with injuries.

Overall, the Wildcats finished the season with a 5-6 record.

Camden opened up at home against the Richmond Hill Wildcats. Camden struggled mightily on offensive and Richmond Hill pulled away, beating the Wildcats 28-11.

The second game of the season went a little better for Camden as they stopped the high-powered rushing attack of the Glynn Academy Red Terrors for a 31-14 win. This started a 4-game winning streak for Camden.

In that streak they beat the Raines Vikings 35-26 on the road, the defending state champion Marietta Blue Devils at Chris Gilman 24-21, and notched a road win against the Oakleaf Knights 25-12.

The tide quickly turned as the injuries continued to mount for Camden and the Wildcats would lose the next three games.

The Coffee County Trojans came to Kingsland and beat the Wildcats in convincing fashion, 37-13.

Then Camden took to the road to play the Warner Robins Demons in a game where the Wildcats were vastly out-manned and put on a running clock in the 4^th quarter. Camden lost this game 43-7 and scored on the last play of the game to avoid being shutout. This was, most certainly, the low point of the season.

It did not get any easier for the Wildcats the following game as they traveled to Moultrie to take on the Colquitt County Packers, who were ranked #3 in the state at the time. Despite a valiant effort in the first half, the depleted Camden County Wildcats went down 34-13.

The losing streak ended the following week as Camden manhandled the Tift County Blue Devils 35-14 to notch their first region win and guarantee them a #3 seed at worst.

The following week Camden took to the road to Valdosta to play the Lowndes County Vikings with a #2 seed on the line.

Most did around the state did not expect this game to be close, but with the Wildcats beginning to get healthy they went toe to toe with the Vikings. Lowndes held off Camden in the end for a 28-21 victory.

This ended the regular season for the Wildcats with a 5-5 record. Camden earned their way into the playoffs and took to Atlanta to take on the Parkview Panthers, who were the #2 seed from region 4-7A.

Camden struggled again on offense for the first 3 quarters of the game and fell behind 17-0 in that span. The defense kept the Wildcats in that football making critical stop after critical stop to keep them in the football game.

Camden dominated the 4^th quarter and came all the way back to force overtime 17-17.

Parkview would prevail in overtime 24-17 to end Camden’s season.

What we saw for most of the year was a team that was under-manned due to injuries and then a very good football team once the team finally started getting healthy. Evidenced by blowing out Tift, playing Lowndes tough to the end and giving Parkview all they wanted.

We will see what the 2021 season brings to Kingsland.