ACWORTH — The Allatoona High School football team continued its march toward a potential region title and kept its perfect record intact with a 38-7 victory over Villa Rica at Buccaneer Stadium on Friday night.

Leading only 16-7 at the half, the Buccaneers (7-0, 7-0 Region 5-AAAAA) grabbed control when they scored on Jeremy Uzee’s second touchdown pass of the game, an 18-yarder to Tommy Davis, to increase the lead to 23-6 with 7:57 left in the third quarter.

Allatoona’s broke it open from there. A six-yard touchdown run by T.J. Herron, who would finish with 155 yards rushing, and a 17-yard touchdown pass from Uzee to Tony Perkins late in the fourth quarter put the game away. Uzee finished the game with three touchdown passes.

The Bucs finished the game with 422 total yards of offense.

Allatoona started the night with a 70-yard punt return for a touchdown by Traboris Tarver being negated on a roughing the punter call. Then on their subsequent possession, the Bucs were stopped on fourth-and-goal from the 5-yard line when Herron was tackled for no gain to keep the game scoreless heading into the second quarter.

Allatoona finally got on the scoreboard on a 31-yard field goal by Nathan Shaw with 7:46 left before the half. The Bucs continued the offensive pressure when Herron scored the first of his two touchdowns of the contest on a 23-yard run up the middle to make the score 9-0.

The Wildcats (3-4, 3-4) responded on their next possession when Jaylon Cox scored on a 47-yard run to cut the lead to 10-7 late in the second quarter, but that would be all VR would muster offensively.

The Wildcats didn’t convert a third-down attempt in the first half on seven chances and finished the game only 2-for-10 on the night.

VR’s offense was led by Cox, who finished the game with a team-high 82 yards rushing.

“We’re a young team that had some chances early in the game to make some plays,” VR coach Mike Falleur said. “We have to get better and keep fighting for the rest of the season.”