By now James Monroe expects to be playing in the quarterfinal round of the playoffs every year. That doesn’t make the feeling any less sweeter.
I also makes it a little easier knowing what to expect, making their third consecutive quarterfinal appearance.
“I guess it just comes back to the experience of the last couple of years getting past round one,” James Monroe head coach John Mustain said. “That does make a difference. But again it may not and I try to downplay things like that. It doesn’t guarantee that you’re gonna get to the next level. I mean you just got to get yourself by getting in the right frame of mind each week. And it’s hard to do sometimes it really is you’re talking about, you’re talking about 16, 17 and 18-year old kids and it’s hard sometimes to get them focused like you want but I think this bunch is pretty well focused they set a goal to begin the year. Like I’m sure most every team in the state has of trying to get back to Wheeling and you know, it helps tremendously that they’ve had previous years and know the ups and downs and what to expect week in and week out and hopefully that will help them to play the best.
“The bottom line is always no matter what our record is and whether we’re regular season or postseason, my biggest hope is that we come out there and play our best ball. Because a high percentage of time if you do that, you’re gonna win. Now there’s gonna be times you don’t win, even if you play your best ball, but that’s what I hope for more than anything is that they come in, they’re focused on Saturday and go out there and perform the way we know they’re capable of performing.”
Awaiting the Mavericks is a Cameron program that comes into the game with a 10-1 record, having thumped Man 40-8 last week.
Colton Wichterman led the way with three rushing touchdowns with 176 yards to boot while Klypsan Wallace added two rushing scores.
The duo have powered the Dragons this season with Wichterman coming in with 1,157 yards passing and another 1,363 on the ground to go with 21 scores. Wallace leads the team with 1,713 yards and 24 rushing scores.
“They have a really good quarterback,” Mustain said. “He throws well and he runs really well. Their tailback, he’s more of a north-south type runner but he’s not a very big kid but he’s a pretty hard runner. They’re solid defensively too. You know they play a lot of what looks to me to be like a 3-4 and then walk their outside linebackers up a good bit to make it look like a five but you know, they’re solid team. Other than that game with Man it’s kind of hard to gauge them because we have no common opponents. So that makes it kind of tough, but they’re definitely gonna be a tough team to beat in my mind. I think they’re gonna be one of the better teams we face this year.”
The Mavericks are on a roll of their own as their offense evolves. All-state quarterback Layton Dowdy has accounted for 10 total touchdowns over the last two weeks – six passing and four rushing. For the season he has 17 passing touchdowns with 1,049 passing yards to boot. His top receiver has been Chaz Boggs who has 12 touchdown receptions, averaging 23 yards per catch.
Cooper Ridgeway has led the ground attack with 972 yards and 16 scores but was on a pitch count last week with a leg injury. Mustain anticipates he’ll be back to his normal workload Saturday.
“He seems to be making very good progression,” Mustain said of Ridgeway. “We had some kids who were hurt prior to that game and the Sherman game was a lot more physical than people realized when you look at the score. Sherman’s got a good physical team. So we’ve kind of been trying to limit the contact this week and really working on game plans and watching a lot of film. He seems to me like he’s coming on pretty well Cooper’s one of those kids and it doesn’t matter how bad he’s hurt he wants to be out there and he’s going to try to downplay whatever injuries going through. But I feel like he’s progressing really well. He should be pretty close to 100% this weekend.”
Even with Ridgeway’s injury the passing attack has opened up enough for the Mavs that Mustain feels good if his team needs to lean upon it. Dowdy’s found his footing in the second half of the season after adjusting to a new receiving corps this season that graduated Eli Allen, Dowdy’s top target, last year.
“That’s something else we’ve been working on so far, Mustain said. “This week is a lot of seven-on-seven type stuff with the passing game and I think it’s progressing really well. Starting the season, we really didn’t know what to expect. You know, sometimes we put Cooper out there, but we’ve seen several players like Brock (Parker), Ryan Mann, Chaz and of course someone who’s better here lately is Bailey Ridgeway, Cooper’s brother. He’s starting to come on pretty well, too. Last year everybody’s focus kind of tended to be on Eli and that helped to open up Chaz and Braydie Carr, who graduated last year, and I think things are really starting to progress in that. You know, when I talk about working on a passing game, it certainly doesn’t mean that something that they will try to do. You know, but if you can run the ball well and you can pass the ball well it really makes you that much better. So hopefully that will continue.”
The Mavericks will host Cameron on Saturday at 1:30 with a trip to the Class A semis on the line.