By T. Scott Boatright
If both teams stay true to form, it looks to be District 1-1A showdown that will have the feel of a crosstown catfight as the Lincoln Preparatory School Panthers play host to the Cedar Creek Cougars.
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. today at Panthers Field.
Lincoln Prep stands at 4-3 overall and 2-2 in district play while Cedar Creek heads into the contest at 1-6 and 1-2.
Both teams are coming off 1-1A home losses as Cedar Creek fell 52-8 last week to Haynesville while Lincoln Prep lost to Glenbrook 24-20.
Going into the game, this contest looks to be a battle in the trenches with both teams favoring their run games.
Cedar Creek senior running back James Myers is the homerun threat for the Cougars, something that isn’t lost on Panthers coach Glen Hall.
“He’s their main guy and is a tough, hard-nosed runner,” Hall said. “But they have a good group of talented rushers.
“They like to run the inside game, with a lot of dive plays along with some counters and the wing toss either out wide or inside. But it will start with our defensive line stopping the inside game and especially the dive. We faced that last week against Glenbrook and did a good job of stopping in the second half. This week we need to stop it from start to finish and not get ourselves into a first-half hole like we did last week.”
Lincoln Prep will counter with a three-headed rushing monster of its own, led by senior running back D’Tavion Wright, who has 767 yards and nine touchdowns rushing, 11 total touchdowns, and four 100-plus yard games on the ground.
“Coach Hall has done a really good job with them. They are a lot faster than they were last year,” said Cougars coach William Parkerson. “(Cenario) Wilson, Wright and (Tyler) Wimberly all run around really well.
“They have some good size on both sides of the line of scrimmage. So, they have some big, physical kids up front and some kids that can really run around. They are executing what they want to do. All of those things lead to success.”
Senior Verlanski Glosson is another tough rusher for the Panthers and splits time at the Wildcat quarterback position with Wright, while quarterback Jordan Brown and senior Jaylin Huntley add the zoom to Lincoln Prep’s ground game.
The Panthers also have an emerging big-time weapon in new student Sam Williams, who is the son of Grambling State coach Samuel Williams and only recently transferred to Lincoln Prep. The younger Williams was a defensive monster in the first game he played for the Panthers last week while also playing some at fullback, adding a rushing touchdown for his team.
“Offensively, they spread you out,” Parkerson said. “They run one and two back spread stuff. Defensively, it all starts from a 4-2-5 and then they move around into some other stuff … but the 4-2-5 is where everything starts for them.”
Lincoln Prep, which first opened in 2016, has never defeated Cedar Creek. The last time a Grambling-based high school defeated the Cougars came in 2014 when Grambling Lab won 8-7.
Despite being district foes located only a few miles from each other, Hall said there isn’t really a rivalry between the two schools.
“Both teams compete hard against each other, but there are no bad feelings or anything like that,” Hall said. “In fact, it’s a friendly competition. Cedar Creek was the only school around here that let us use their field for all those years that we didn’t have one and were having to play most of our home schedule at the schools we were playing.
“Only cedar creek and Jonesboro-Hodge let us play home fields at their places. That’s something we remember and will always appreciate. My staff and cedar creek’s staff get along well and look out for each other.”
The contest can be heard on 99.3 FM with Ray Creasy and Ben Haddox providing a call of the game.
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