HBHS tries to stay alive in playoff race

By Dusty Harper (Contact) | Alex City Outlook

Published Wednesday, October 14, 2009

After a loss last week at Clay County, the Horseshoe Bend football team finds itself in the thick of a crowded Class 2A postseason race.

The Generals, Lanett and Randolph County are all sitting at 2-3, tied for the fourth and final playoff spot in Region 5. There are numerous scenarios about how things could play out, but the best one for HBHS is to win its final two region games against Woodland and Ohatchee and hope Lineville can also beat Woodland next week.

“If we beat Woodland this week, win next Friday and Lineville beats Woodland, we’ll all be 4-3, and we would get into the playoffs based on tiebreakers, we think,” said General head coach Jason Franklin. “That’s what we told the kids and that’s the approach we’re taking. We have to take care of our business, and maybe we’ll get a break on the tiebreakers.”

Taking care of business this week for HBHS won’t be easy, as the Generals welcome a Bobcat team that is 5-2 overall (4-1 region) and has won four straight contests.

Woodland is one of the most balanced teams HBHS will see this year. In addition to having a running back (Josh Heard) with 436 yards, Woodland has a quarterback in Richard Fetner who has thrown for 1,042 yards and picked up 386 more on the ground.

“It’s kind of like looking in a mirror,” Franklin said of his thoughts on watching the Bobcats. “They throw it a good bit, and they have a great quarterback that transferred from Wadley. We’ll definitely have to play well in the secondary. I thought we did a good job of containing Clay County’s good back (D.J. Williams) last week with the exception of the last few minutes of the first half. We just have to come out and set the tempo early Friday.”

Willams rushed for 4 touchdowns in the Panthers’ 28-0 win against HBHS in Ashland. In that game, a normally strong General running game was held to negative yardage. Franklin said the offensive line has to step up when the running game is not working.

“We’ve got to be able to protect Josh (Price) better when we can’t run,” Franklin said. “We also have to execute better. We had four or five dropped passes last week, and one was a jailbreak screen where the receiver had a hole big enough to drive a truck through. Those are the types of things you can’t have.

“The guys know what’s at stake this week,” Franklin said. “Hopefully, things will work out for us in the playoffs, but none of that matters if we don’t do what we’re capable of starting this week.”

The Generals go for their fifth of the year Friday at 7 p.m. in New Site.

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