Mayflower needs win for No. 3 seed

By Kevin Black
UCA sportswriting

Mayflower — The Mayflower Eagles lost at Barton last Friday, 37-27, but they are looking to hold down the No. 3 seed in the 3A-2 Conference at home Friday against England.

The game is a big one for Mayflower (3-5, 3-2), according to coach Jed Davis.

“First of all it’s huge because it’s senior night, and you always want those seniors to have a good memory of their senior night,” Davis said. “But the other thing is that [the game against England] takes us one step closer to the playoffs and to the No. 3 seed.”

Harding Academy is undefeated and leading the 3A-2 Conference with Barton in the No. 2 seed with a 4-1 conference record, followed by Mayflower and Episcopal at 3-2.

The Eagles’ final two games against the winless England Lions and the Episcopal Collegiate Wildcats (4-4) are all that stands between them and the playoffs.
“[Beating England] would be a huge victory for us,” Davis said.
The Eagles need a win against the Lions and for the Wildcats to lose to winless Rose Bud to avoid playing at Episcopal in the final game of the regular season for playoff positions.

“Then the Episcopal game, our last game of the year against Episcopal, to decide who is going to be the third and fourth seed in our conference,” Davis said.

After dropping two games in a row, including a televised game against Harding Academy at home, with their leading rusher Demetris Lasker out with a groin injury, the Eagles hope to win when it counts, according to Davis.

“[Lasker] is good; we still can’t get his groin 100 percent healed, but it’s going to get as good as it’s going to get this football season,” Davis said.

The Eagles have had problems protecting the ball in the last two losses, and Davis said they have worked to avoid that during practice this week.
“We’re working strip-drills and everything in practice trying to get them used to it,” Davis said.

Davis said the Lions’ success in track has the Eagles getting prepared to handle speed.

“You know, England, they’ve been the state runner-up the last two years in track, so we expect them to have a lot of athletes, and we expect them to play hard,” Davis said.

Eagle quarterback Jordan Dycus said the Eagles have worked on a special game plan to offset the Wildcat speed.

“Basically they run a 3-4 defense, cover-2, so we’ll work a lot of our short passing game, and we’re also working on our outside running game,” Dycus said.

Dycus said the Eagles are not taking the Lions lightly.

“We have to have these last two wins to make it to the playoffs," he said. "We’ve been slipping up so, it’s very important to win.”

The Eagles and Lions face off at 7 p.m. Friday at Patrick Stadium.