Blue Eagles seek season’s second win at White Knoll

Continuing a demanding nonregion slate of games leading to Region 3-AAAA competition, the Clover High School football team will travel to Lexington Friday night to battle White Knoll.

The defending region champion Timberwolves and Blue Eagles will square off at 7:30 p.m.

Clover head coach Chad Smith expects a stern challenge from Friday’s opponent with both teams featuring ground-oriented offensive schemes.

“They like to run the ball down hill. They play a 50 on defense,” he said.

The Timberwolves are coming off a bye week. “They’re probably extremely healthy right now,” he said. “They’ve had a week to prepare.”

The long trip to Lexington is a wild card, Smith said.

“Anytime you take the kids on a two-hour trip after a day at school, it can be a crapshoot. I think our kids will handle it well,” he said.

Shifting his thoughts to last week’s 42-14 loss to unbeaten Westwood, Smith said the Blue Eagles had opportunities to cut into the lead.

“With our scheme, you can’t overcome three turnovers,” he said. “Really, in any scheme. If you have three turnovers in a 48-minute game, that’s way too many against a quality football team. They’re gonna make you pay for it.”

Smith said playing without Tanner Tolson and Cody Payne in the backfield affected the outcome.

“We were playing with kind of a makeshift backfield; that’s where a lot of the turnovers came from,” Smith said. “But at the same time, we had some kids really step up and do some good things on the offensive side of the ball. That’s the most yards we’ve gotten in a game so far.”

The Blue Eagles dominated possession of the football, running 19 more plays and holding the ball 11 more minutes than the Redhawks.

Senior running back Tenchi Her rushed for 58 yards on six carries and scored a touchdown.

Junior inside linebacker Hayden Milley scored the first touchdown of his career on a fumble return.

“I saw the ball on the ground and picked it up,” Milley said. “It was a good feeling scoring my first touchdown.”

Milley added: “We’ve got to keep the momentum up, keep it going and get off the field as quickly as possible.”

Smith considers last week’s performance at Westwood to be a wake-up call.

“You’ve got to know how to handle adversity,” he said. “You also have to know how to handle a win We’ll put our nose back to the grindstone this week and see what kind of product we put out on the field.”

While much attention will be given to the final two nonregion games, Smith knows what’s next is special.

“Bottom line is once region play starts, that’s where seasons are made or broken,” said Smith. “We don’t want to worry about that yet. We want to go down to White Knoll and get a W. I think our kids will work hard and be ready to roll.”

This story was originally published September 8, 2015 at 11:05 AM with the headline "Blue Eagles seek season’s second win at White Knoll."