It was only fitting: the Chattahoochee Cougars capped the first perfect season in school history by playing the perfect game.

The high-powered Hooch offense put up 24 points and the Cougar defense pitched their first shut out of the year as Chattahoochee claimed their first state football title Friday night with a dominating 24-0 victory over previously unbeaten Starr's Mill.

Coming into the game, the high-octane Cougar offense was the talk of AAAA football, but when the clock hit zero at the Georgia Dome, everyone was buzzing about the Chattahoochee defense.

Not only did the Cougar defense hold Starr's Mill scoreless, they held the Panther offense to only 199 total yards on the night. Going into the title game, the Starr's Mill offense had averaged 33 points and over 300 yards per game.

"The defense has been kind of overshadowed [by the offense] this season, but we've been trucking along, putting everything together and it showed tonight," Cougar defensive lineman Stephen Frankiewicz said after the game. "We've been trying to get our defensive coordinator [Ryan Corbett] his first shut out. We're glad we got it in this game, everything just clicked tonight."

The Cougars held Starr's Mill running back Zach Laskey – who came into the night averaging 105 yards a game – to only 28 yards on 11 carries.

The Hooch defense didn't run any tricky schemes in the game either, as a matter of fact, they did the opposite of that. "Going into film last Sunday, we had a game plan where we were going to scheme and do a bunch of stuff," Frankiewicz said. "Our coaches asked the Tucker coaches what they would do to stop Starr's Mill and they said if they could do it over again, they would have just played their base defense. So that's what we did."

Hooch coach Terry Crowder confirmed Frankiewicz's story, "The more simple you are, the better you're going to play," the coach said afterward. "We didn't call a defensive play all night, we just stayed in our 3-4 base all night."

For Chattahoochee, it wasn't just the defense that was impressive; the offense and special teams clicked too.

Cougar kicker Ammon Lakip opened up the game's scoring in the first quarter with a 50-yard field goal that now has him in the record book tied for the longest kick in state title game history.

On their next possession after Lakip's field goal, Chattahoochee found themselves pinned at their own 1-yard line after a brilliant punt by Starr's Mill's Matt Hubbard.

With 99-yards between them and the end zone, the Cougar offense was unfazed. A 20-yard run by freshman Chase Nelson gave Chattahoochee some breathing room and after that, quarterback Timmy Byerly took over. Byerly went 3-for-3 on the drive for 51 yards. His biggest completion of the series was a 21-yard hookup with Kane Whitehurst on a third-and-15. Byerly would later cap the 14-play, 99-yard drive with a 3-yard scoring run.

The senior quarterback finished his high school career with a typical Byerly performance: 109 yards on the ground and 110 yards through the air.

The signal caller gave all the credit for his performance to the guys up front, "It really speaks volumes about the way the offensive line played," Byerly said, talking about offensive linemen Matt Kiefer, Kirk Dumont, Matt Mills, Travis Skillingstad and Callan Gillison. "They made their calls right all night and they played incredible."

Up 10-0 at halftime, Crowder didn't let his team get comfortable. "I knew that [Starr's Mill] had been down 20-0 to Brunswick and came back to win, so we said, forget the score, it's zero to zero and we have one more half to play."

The Hooch offense responded to Crowder's challenge accordingly.

On their first possession of the second half, Chattahoochee drove 80-yards straight down the field for a touchdown. Nelson capped the 11-play drive with a 1-yard score. And it wouldn't be a Chattahoochee touchdown drive if Byerly didn't do something amazing. Facing a third-and-12 at the Starr's Mill 34, Byerly Houdini'd his way out of three tackles and then found Whitehurst for a 27-yard gain that set up Nelson's score.

"It gives you a lot of confidence when you convert third-and-longs," Byerly said afterward, but even he couldn't explain how he kept breaking tackle after tackle. "Some of those conversions, I don't have an answer for them, they were just crazy."

By the time Kane Whitehurst scored the Cougars final touchdown of the night early in the fourth quarter, the 7,500 Chattahoochee fans in attendance were already celebrating what was sure to be a Hooch state title. Whitehurst scored on a 12-yard wide receiver reverse, his only rush of the night. The senior receiver also had four catches for 82 yards. Byerly's second favorite target in the game was Hunter Thomas, who had two catches for 26 yards.

While Byerly led the Cougars in the rushing department with 109 yards, Nelson also had a solid game with 73 yards on 14 carries. Through the air, Byerly finished the night 7-of-12 for 112 yards.

Frankiewicz and Barron Dixon led the Chattahoochee defense with a sack apiece. The sacks came on consecutive plays early in the fourth quarter. The only turnover of the game was a Chris Johnson interception of Starr's Mill quarterback Adam Holley.

Holley was 7-of-18 for 110 yards in the game. For the most part, the Panther senior QB had no where to throw as the Starr's Mill wide receivers were blanketed by Hooch defensive backs Thomas, Whitehurst, Will Johnson and Trey Hart.

Cougar linebackers Josh Gregory, Christian Sutherland and Cooper Campbell were able to clog up the middle, which made it difficult for Starr's Mill to run the ball. The Panthers finished the night with only 89 yards on the ground.

Crowder was the last person from the Chattahoochee entourage to leave the field Friday night and as he walked off, he looked up at the roof of the Georgia Dome and still seemed to be in disbelief, as he said to no one in particular, "Wow, this is it, we did it."

Chattahoochee finishes the season 15-0.