West Bladen’s Knights start a key closing stretch of games that will determine their play-off fortunes Friday night as the Knights travel to Clinton to play the league-leading Dark Horses.
After Clinton the Knights host Midway then visit East Bladen. “It doesn’t get much tougher than that,” said West Bladen Coach Russell Dove. “Those three haven’t lost to hardly anybody except each other.” Those three opponents are a combined 15-2 against other teams.
“We’ve had a pretty good week of practices,” continued Coach Dove. “We’re upbeat about it. We want to make them have to drive the football. Offensively, we moved it on them some last year, and we didn’t have Malique (McDowell) and De-De (Daquan Lennon).”
The Dark Horses are ranked No. 6 in the state in Class 2-A with only a 24-21 loss to Wilmington Hoggard marring their record. “Coach (Bob) Lewis knows how to get it done,” said Dove. “They are fast on defense and swarm to the ball. Offensively they just plug away until they break one.”
Junior Ryheem Skinner leads the Clinton offense with 1,061 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns. Speedy junior Tyion Wright has run for 414 yards and 7 touchdowns. Senior Rayquan Faison has added 371 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns.
Quarterback Kris Williams has thrown for 318 yards and 4 touchdowns and has rushed for 5 more touchdowns. Junior lineman Prentice Murphy (62 tackles) and senior L. J. Farrior (58 tackles) lead the Clinton defense.
McDowell leads the Knight running backs with 707 yards and 4 touchdowns. Junior James Moore ran for 117 yards and 2 touchdowns in last week’s 50-21 Homecoming victory over Pender. Moore has 596 yards rushing for the season.
Sophmore B. J. Drake rushed for 96 yards and the first two Knight TD’s against Pender. Drake has totaled 544 yards and 4 touchdowns for the season. Lennon led the Knights with 123 rushing yards versus Pender and scored on a 75-yard run and on a 66-yard kick-off return.
Senior quarterback Stefan McDonald has thrown for 221 yards and 2 touchdowns. Senior David Gittens leads the Knight defense with 69 tackles. Junior linebacker Hunter Pait (32 tackles) is another West defensive stand-out.
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