Five different Rome High football teams have been to the state quarterfinals. And five times, the Wolves saw the season end at that point. Yet minutes after he saw his team fight for a 14-10 win over St. Pius X in a Class AAAA state playoff second round game Friday night at Barron Stadium, which gave Rome its sixth trip to the quarterfinals, Wolves coach Sid Fritts was wasn’t going to let the accomplishment cloud his thoughts.

“Sure, it’s always nice to make the quarterfinals,” Fritts said, “but we’re not in it for that.

“We’ve done that before. We want to go further.”

Rome’s quest to play beyond the quarterfinals, however, will have to go through South Georgia next week where the No. 10 Wolves will take on a team all too familiar about playing a 15th game — defending state champion and top-ranked Northside Warner Robins, which blanked Evans in the second round 26-0.

“These kids have accepted a lot of challenges over the last six weeks,” Fritts pointed out. “They’ve proven that they want to keep playing to the end.”

Against the Golden Lions of St. Pius, the Wolves (10-1-1) overcame a hot-and-cold offensive performance thanks to a defensive unit that stepped up when called upon.

Following a second fumble of the night that killed what would have been a game-sealing touchdown with just over four minutes to play, the Wolves stood their ground against a St. Pius team that refused to back down.

Starting at their own 20, the Lions drove to the Rome 40 with 1:58 to play. But that was as far as they would get as the Wolves benefited from a pair of St. Pius penalties, forced a pair of incomplete passes and got a sack from senior T.J. Helton.

“They’re not young any more,” Fritts said of the defense. “They’ve become a Rome defense.”

“The guts stepped up tonight,” defensive coordinator Franco Perkins said. “They made the big plays and the big stops when they had to.

“The main thing,” he noted about the team calling upon the unit to stand firm in the final minutes, “is to keep the kids up and focused on what they have to do.”

Rome, which enters the quarterfinals with a six-game winning streak, served quick notice when Reggie Whatley broke loose for an 80-yard touchdown on the first play of the game. Coner Young added the first of two extra points.

That sudden outburst, however, would be the lone score of the first half, and with the door still open, St. Pius closed the gap with 7:34 left in the third period when Chris Philpott delivered a 50-yard field goal.

The Wolves responded with an 84-yard scoring drive that ended when Whatley found the end zone again, this time from 13 yards out, but the Lions were equal to the task.

On the ensuing series, St. Pius put together their own march, this one going 70 yards and ending when quarterback P.G. Standard hit Jack Pendergast with a 28-yard touchdown pass early in the final quarter.

Rome came back with another time-consuming drive and came within a yard of sealing the win, but Whatley lost the ball at the Lions’ 1 and St. Pius recovered the ball in its own end zone to set up Rome’s defensive stand.

“Both of the fumbles we lost probably cost us 14 points,” Fritts said. “You can’t do that from now on and get away with it.”

Despite the turnovers, Rome ended the night rolling up 306 yards on the ground, with Whatley leading all rushers with 140 yards on 10 carries and P.J. Green added another 132 yards on 11 carries.