PLAYOFF CAPSULES: Spring Creek at Lakewood

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on November 17, 2016 9:57 AM

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Spring Creek (3-8 overall)

at Lakewood (8-3)

Last time out: Spring Creek lost 54-7 to Princeton; Lakewood defeated James Kenan 38-21.

Last meeting: 2016, Lakewood won 29-0.

Notable: Spring Creek is making its fourth consecutive playoff appearance and is 0-9 all-time -- with all games played on the road. The Leopards have the best-scoring defense and put a four-game win streak on the line. Lakewood shared the Carolina Conference title with North Duplin and Princeton, and drew the No. 1 seed for the Mideast 1-AA (large-school) Region. The Gators are the No. 8 seed out of the East Region.

You've seen Lakewood this season, what must your team do to pull out a win this Friday? "I think one of the things going back to when we played them the first week of conference play, we had some success moving the football, but whenever we got down inside the red zone, our offense stalled out ... I think three times and that hurt," SC head coach Aaron Sanders said. "We have to make sure that when we get inside the red zone, we are walking away with points. Defensively, we played them well. We just gave up the big play a couple of times and we can't do that. We have to make them work to score against us. We had two turnovers on our side of the 50 and you absolutely cannot do that. We're just trying to clean up those mistakes and making sure that we're playing well."

What makes their defense so effective? "I think first and foremost it starts at the top. They've got a defensive coordinator who has several years of experience," Sanders said. "He does a very good job of preparing his kids for what they are going to see and Lakewood is a very athletic football team. They've got kids in the secondary who run to the ball well. Their linebackers do a good job of filling lanes where the offense is trying to create them. Then they've got some big guys up front who are hard to move. All of that is a formula for a pretty darn good defense."

Who has to step up and have a good game for you offensively against Lakewood? "We've had some young men who have been mainly defensive players who haven't played a lot of offense, but have the ability to catch the football," Sanders said. "So, those kids are going to have to step up and play well for us. And our running backs are going to have to get after it. I didn't feel like our line had a great game last week, so they're going to have to have a much better game this week. As a whole, everybody is going to have to step their game up a notch when you're missing pieces."

Getting the school's first-ever playoff win, how much motivation is that for this team? "I think our seniors definitely know that's sitting out there," Sanders said. "Our seniors know how important it is to do something like that and they also know how much more difficult that might be getting ready to be, too, because you're going into what is an extremely difficult (2-A) conference (next season) and they know that this game has a lot of riding on it for future indicators, also. The kids are looking forward to having an opportunity to play Lakewood again."