DAWSONVILLE — Dawson County may be a young program, but they know how to fight.
The Tigers (3-1) put up a vicious fight against a college prospect loaded Class 4A Denmark (2-0) on Friday night at Tiger Stadium, taking them down-to-the-wire in a 38-24 loss to the Danes.
"Hats off to the coaching staff and the way they prepared," Dawson coach Sid Maxwell said. "We played hard tonight. It's a young football group and the one thing they do is play 48 minutes and play their hearts out. It's really fun to coach when you guys like that. I hope we don't lose that edge because that's been our driving force. Our kids play with a lot of guts."
The Tigers battled toe-to-toe for 48 minutes, sparring with the Danes and landing punch after punch in the non-region contest.
But it was Auburn-commits, Aaron McLaughlin and Ze'Vian Capers, that won the match in the end. The Power 5 duo connected nine times for 303 yards and two scores. McLaughlin hit Casey Gunn for another six passes for 141 yards and a touchdown.
The Danes finished with 554 total yards of offense. McLaughlin was 19-29-2 for 473 yards and three touchdowns. Zach Ogbogu rushed 12 times for 54 yards and two touchdowns.
Despite the large Dane numbers, the Tigers stayed within striking distance and even led in the second quarter.
After a 44-yard Caleb Bonesteel field goal late in the second quarter, Denmark answered on the first of three big-play scores when McLaughlin nailed Gunn for a 50-yard score. The touchdown gave the Danes the lead before halftime, 14-10.
Denmark pushed its lead 24-10 after a 27-yard field goal and a touchdown.
Dawson struck back, however, when Zack Holtzclaw connected with Joey Toal on a 21-yard pass for a touchdown to close it to a one-score game, 24-17.
Both Dawson and Denmark traded scores over the next minute, with McLaughlin and Capers hooking up on a 71-yard TD pass and Dawson's Holtzclaw hitting Brody Howell on an 18-yard score with 3:39 left in the game.
But McLaughlin and Capers hit on another big play -- a 51-yard TD pass -- with 3:20 to go, 38-24.
Holtzclaw was 10-17 with one INT for 160 yards and two touchdowns. Shawn Thomas finished with 80 yards rushing.
The Tigers will open Region 7-3A play Friday at Lumpkin County. Game time is 7:30 p.m.
"I always look at it as a faceless opponent each week," Maxwell said. "It's not about who we play, it's how we need to get better to play. This game took a lot out of us. We got banged up a little bit, but we played hard and that's part of football."
Tim Whitmire and Brannon Bennett from North Georgia SportsLink contributed to this story.
