By Chuck Reherman
Sport Editor
The sole lead for District C-3 will be on the line tonight as well as the possibility of a district title when Southwest Covenant and Covington-Douglas clash at Patriot Field.
Kickoff for the key C-3 game will be at 7 p.m. The game is also homecoming for the Patriots.
The No. 3 ranked and unbeaten Patriots take a 6-0 record and 3-0 district mark into the game. Covington-Douglas is also 3-0 in district play after receiving a forfeit from Welch last week. So, the Wildcats have had two weeks to prepare for the game. CDHS is 6-1 overall.
The Patriots were expected to have their toughest challenge last week against Coyle, but rolled to a 48-28 win, the first time the team has “gone the distance” in a game this season. SWCS will be challenged again this week from the resurgent Wildcats, who have tripled their amount of wins already from last year. CDHS beat Bluejacket 70-22 in their last outing and beat Deer Creek-Lamont 60-14 the week before that.
“Covington-Douglas will be a good test for us,” SWCS head coach Trey Cloud said. “They have really improved from last year and have a good running attack. We will have to go out and played well against them.
“Last week was a big win for us, and if we go out and win this game, it pretty much puts us in the drivers seat to win the district title,” he said. “That is one of the goals of this team, we have never won a district title in football and these guys want to be the first to accomplish that.”
Covington-Douglas has based their offense around the run behind runningbacks Braden Davis and Tristen Griffin. Quarterback Weston Carl is more of a running quarterback, but can throw the football. He has a pair of good receivers in Dalton Fleeson and James Kroll to throw to.
On defense, the Wildcats are not big and physical, but have a lot of quickness to rely on. Fleeson and Kroll lead the defense at linebacker.
That defense will have a test in trying to stop the juggernaut Patriot offensive attack. SWCS has rolled up 320 points in their six games (53 a game). The offense is led by quarterback Ben Webb, who had a career game against Coyle with 270 yards of total offense (157 passing and 113 rushing).
Runningback Trevor Kelly leads the ground game although he had only 37 rushing last week. He is also a threat in the punt return game where he has four punt returns for touchdowns this season.
The Patriot defense has allowed only 38 points this season and gave up 24 of those to Coyle last week.
“Our defense has been playing well and Coyle had a really good offense,” Cloud said. “We know what we will have to do on defense to stop Covington this week and we feel we can go out and accomplish that.”
