FOOTBALL CAPSULES: J.H. Rose @ Southern Wayne

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on October 6, 2016 10:23 AM

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J.H. ROSE (3-3, 2-0 ECC)

at SOUTHERN WAYNE (1-5, 0-2)

Last time out: Southern Wayne lost 30-28 to C.B. Aycock; J.H. Rose defeated South Central 20-19.

Last meeting: 2015, J.H. Rose won 57-6.

Notable: SW senior Manny Walker has 961 yards rushing and 12 touchdowns on just 94 carries this season. The Rampants and CBA share the league's highest-scoring offense.

Coach, you guys are coming off a great defensive effort against Charles B. Aycock. But Rose can put points on the board, too, so what's the biggest challenge they present to you? "Just containing their athletes, containing their play-makers. We think if we match our best athletes against theirs, we've got a chance to win," SW head coach Ronnie McClary Jr. said. "You can't play a team like J.H. Rose and make mistakes. We've got to have an almost perfect game to win against them."

What impresses you the most about them? "The athletes they, the play-makers they have are just quick. We have to put our hands on them to block them. Our DBs have to keep up with them. Their athleticism is impressive, but they've been like that the last couple of years. It doesn't surprise me, but every year it's somebody different."

What have you discussed with the players about this game? "We feel like we had a pretty decent game against Aycock and they have good athletes. They depend on the pass a lot and that was a good set up game for J.H. Rose. The game they're playing tonight is a better team collectively than Aycock. The mistakes we had, we can't make them. We want to approach every game like it's winnable, whether they have more playmakers or not. If we can get them to make mistakes and we can play mistake-free football, then I feel like we have a fighting chance. One thing to our advantage is it's a home game and community support is brewing again, so we feel like we're going in the right  direction. We can't make those critical errors in critical parts of the game. We tell our kids they can only put 11 (players) on the field and we feel like at any point in time our 11 can play with any 11 in the state."

Manny and Quentin, how key are they going to be tonight? "They're always key (players). But what we have to realize is that every team we play against, they're going to key on those two. Just like we depend on them, opponents depend on their team to stop them. We need other guys to step up at running back or at receiver to make those plays. Both of them had pretty good games against C.B. Aycock. Every week everybody thinks if they've got a chance to stop No. 5 (Carlton) and No. 8 (Walker), they've got a chance. That's been the case, but we've been driving it to our other guys that they should be offended because they you make just as many plays. You can be just as critical in us winning a game or causing a turnover, whatever. To us, it's a slap in the face to the other play-makers we have and also to Quentin and Manny."