Spartans put dent in Tigers’ playoff hopes
Princeton (8) vs. Greenbrier East (39)
Written: Oct 30, 2015
By CAM HUFFMAN
for the Daily Telegraph
FAIRLEA — When Greenbrier East last played postseason football, current head coach Ray Lee was an assistant principal in North Carolina, and star running back Zayvion Lawson was a newborn baby.
Lee and Lawson, though, helped end that 16-year playoff drought Friday with a 39-8 win over Princeton (5-4) that basically clinched a spot for the Class AAA Spartans (6-3), who were No. 12 when the week began.
“I’m so happy for our guys,” said a visibly emotional Lee in the moments following the Homecoming victory. “It’s a great, great, great bunch of men that I work with every day.”
Things started well for the Spartans on the opening play of the showdown between the two Class AAA playoff hopefuls.
With the Tiger defense focused on Lawson, who became Greenbrier East’s single-season rushing leader last week, Lee ran a reverse from Lawson to Colby Johnson, but that wasn’t the end of the deception.
Johnson, a former quarterback, stopped and looked downfield, where he saw wide receiver Josh McClung standing all by himself. Johnson delivered a strike, and McClung ran untouched into the end zone for a 65-yard score.
“We did it in practice and (McClung) was so far down the field that we had to slow him down,” laughed Lee, admitting that his eyes almost fell out of his head when he saw just how open McClung was on the play. “He gets out there and gets a little anxious. So we told him how to run the play to where it wouldn’t be such a long throw. But he was wide open.”
That set the tone for the Spartan offense, which fed Lawson early and often and then took its shots down the field. Lawson carried the ball 29 times for 194 yards and scored two touchdowns. He has run for 150 or more in every game this season and is now just 27 yards shy of 2,000. His longest run of the night covered just 29 yards, but he continually ran for three, four or five yards per tote, keeping the ball in the hands of the East offense and the Tiger defense on its heels.
“I have complete confidence in our team, and I’m proud to say we’re going to the playoffs,” said Lawson. “I can see that I always have one or two guys keying on me. But as long as my linemen keep blocking for me, I’m going to keep trying to get five or six yards per carry and keep the chains moving.”
The passing game for the Spartans was limited but effective. A 45-yard pass from Carr to Johnson accounted for another Spartan touchdown over the top in the second quarter, and that was more than enough.
Moving the ball and scoring points was no surprise for an East offense that came in averaging 43.6 points and 435 yards of offense per game. But the big story was once again the improvement on defense.
A unit that allowed 47.6 points and 416 yards per game through the first half of the season held their opponent to single digits on the scoreboard for the fourth straight week for the first time since 1988, when the Spartans finished the regular season undefeated and played for a Class AAA state championship.
East gave up just 142 yards of total offense to the Tigers, 131 of them on the ground. In wins over University, Logan, Parkersburg South and Princeton the last four weeks, East has allowed a total of 19 points.
“We wanted to get some fresh legs on the field,” said Lee of the changes made on defense at the midpoint of the season. “We were playing a lot of big guys both ways, and we moved them around. We talked about not sitting still. We wanted to attack.
“Mental toughness is something we talk about all the time, and you can see it growing each game. They’ve seen that they can have success if they just push a little harder.”
Princeton’s biggest threat was fullback Zach Standifur, who finished with 71 yards on 14 carries. Jordan Jones scored the only Tigers touchdown and rushed for 20 yards, but Princeton (5-4) lost yardage on 12 of 47 carries.
“Greenbrier East is a great team with a great senior class,” said Princeton’s first-year head coach Wes Eddy. “They really wanted to go to the playoffs, and they showed up and played penalty-free football. They took it to us.”
East will look to better improve its playoff seeding when it finishes out the regular season against Oak Hill next Friday before entering the postseason for the first time in decades.
Princeton, which was tied for No. 14 this week, will likely have to beat undefeated Point Pleasant if it hopes to find a spot in the postseason.
“We’re trying to change a culture, but we’re not doing things that are conducive to playoff level football,” said Eddy. “We’re making penalties and letting our heads go down. We’re just not where we need to be yet, but we’re going to get that back.”
— Email: chuffman@
register-herald.com
At Spartan Stadium
Princeton....................0 8 0 0 — 8
Greenbrier East............13 12 7 7 — 39
First quarter
GE: Josh McClung 65 pass from Colby Johnson (Zac Yates kick), 11:46
GE: Jonathan Carr 1 run (Yates kick fails), 1:41
Second quarter
P: Safety, blocked punt rolls through end zone, 10:57
P: Jordan Jones 5 run (Jones pass fails), 7:25
GE: Josh McClung 45 pass from Carr (pass fails), 5:46
GE: Shy Atkinson recovers fumble in end zone (pass fails), 0:35.5
Third quarter
GE: Zayvion Lawson 2 run (Yates kick), 5:11
Fourth quarter
GE: Lawson 11 run (Yates kick), 3:32
———
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — P: Jordan Jones 10-20, Zach Standifur 8-71, Christian Shafer 8-(minus-21), Kevin Phillips 9-34, Je’Nye Hearn 1-5, Jayden Hearn 3-(minus 6), Jaden Thorn 1-(minus 1), Alec Winfree1-29. GE: Zayvion Lawson 29-194, Logan Freeman 6-27, Jonathan Carr 5-(minus 1).
PASSING — P: Christian Shafer 2-7-2-11. GE: Jonathan Carr 2-6-0-52, Colby Johnson 1-1-0-65.
RECEIVING — P: Standifur 1-(minus 3), Jordan Jones 1-14. GE: Josh McClung 2-110, Nathaniel Byers 1-7.
TAKEAWAYS — P: unknown (2 FR). GE: Joey Powell (FR), Billy Honaker (INT), Jared Morgan (INT), Colby Johnson (FR).
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