Seahawks, Bobcats look to get back on track in Region 8-AAA matchups

With the second week of Region 8-AAA play comes must-win games for Bluffton and Hilton Head High after each lost its conference opener last Friday night.

The pair of schools appeared to be heading in opposite directions in last week's defeats. Bluffton played what coach Jeremy West called his team's best game of the season in a 26-25 loss at Lake Marion. And, from the sounds of it, it doesn't seem the Bobcats caught many breaks in that one.

Hilton Head High, on the other hand, was a team that came out visibly flat and without much passion in its blowout loss to region favorite North Charleston. To make matters worse, several Seahawks players told me this week that starting quarterback Jon Bever has quit the team. He hasn't been present at practice all week.

But luckily there's always next week in high school football. And that comes tonight. So let's analyze the teams' chances to get back on a winning track.

LAKE MARION AT HILTON HEAD HIGH
Obviously the biggest news of the week for the Seahawks has already been mentioned —Bever is no longer with the team. It's a story we don't need to harp on, but it will be interesting to see exactly how it affects the team's offense. Bever obviously started for each of Hilton Head High's win this year, largely due to his leadership skills.

Jeff Homad will likely have the start tonight (though coach Tim Singleton pre-phrased his comments about Homad with "if he gets the nod"). Homad started the first two games of the season for Hilton Head High and did so with mixed results. Homad certainly has the arm strength to be a starting high school quarterback. But he needs to improve the intangibles in order to lead the Seahawks to victory tonight against the Gators. Singleton is confident he'll do exactly that.

"I think Jeff — if he gets the nod — will be a much-improved senior quarterback and he's going to be a much-improved leader, which is the key," Singleton said. "When you're down in that well and all of a sudden you get a second chance at life, you appreciate things a lot more, don't you?"

Even more important is if the rest of the team will follow suit. The Seahawks didn't appear into the game last Friday night — which is unusual for a Singleton-coached team. Expect to see personnel changes tonight against Lake Marion, specifically in the secondary, which was torched by a combination of Corey Washington and Denzel Myers last week.

"You can make (last week) useful by understanding that you can't just show up to a game," Singleton said. "You have to come ready to play."

STALL AT BLUFFTON
The Bobcats learned a valuable lesson in last week's loss at Lake Marion — no matter the opponent, stick to what you do best.

Bluffton opened last week's game in the spread formation, thinking it would provide an easier way to move the ball against Lake Marion's defense. That, however, wasn't the case, forcing the Bobcats to switch back to their usual Wing-T offense. From there, they rushed for more than 300 yards, including Timmy Smith's 206.

So even though Stall's defense is largely dependent on a pair of stout defensive ends, don't expect the Bobcats to change their philosophy this time around.

"We're going to try to run it all year," coach Jeremy West said. "We had a big game offensively last week, and it's because we just kept running, running, running. So we're not going to change that."

The trap play was most successful, which led to Smith's far and away best performance of the season. The senior had just 108 yards coming into last week after totaling 1,122 yards a year ago.

Of course, they key to the opening up the holes for the trap play is getting the fullback going early in the game. So look for the Bobcats to attempt that tonight. It's also been helpful that quarterback Desmond Jenkins is easing his way into the option offense and has become more prone to pitching the ball rather than keeping it himself.

"He's getting good with it," West said. "He's still got a little bit of work to go, but he's making his reads a lot better."

On another note, the Bobcats may be 0-1 in Region 8-AAA and thus facing a long road toward reaching their goal of a league championship, but that hasn't been mentioned around the practice field this week.

"The way I see it, we're 1-0 in the region. We won that game," West said. "We're going to play that way. That's the attitude we got."

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