The Tucker High School team that Marist School faced earlier in the season was not the same team that showed up for the Dec. 12 Class AAAA state football final at the Georgia Dome. The second time around provided a 15-3 victory for Tucker and the DeKalb County school’s first state championship.

The score doesn’t tell the real story behind the statistics. Tucker had only one touchdown in the game, which came on a 1-yard run by senior running back Jonathan Davis with 2:47 left in the game. Tucker’s other scoring came on two field goals and one safety, all in the second quarter. Marist had averaged 31 points per game in the four previous playoff games, but the team was unable to do what it had done in those games, which was to dominate like they did in the first two games or stay close enough to eke out a win as in the last two games. In the championship game Tucker allowed them to do neither. Marist had 68 total rushing yards and zero passing yards, while Tucker had 232 rushing yards and 115 passing yards.

Marist’s only score came on a fourth quarter Justin Moore field goal, his eighth of the season.

It was a season of bookend losses for Marist. They lost the first game of the season to St. Pius