By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
Aiming for three in a row.
Southwest Covenant will be looking to wrap up the non-district season with a third straight win Friday when Davenport comes to town for a 7 p.m. kickoff at Taylor Park.
The Patriots, 3-1, will be facing a 1-2 Bulldog team that is coming off a 26-6 win over Yale in a game that saw the team’s top runningback return after missing the first three games.
“This is a matchup of two very even teams,” Patriot head coach John Jensen said. “This team was 12-1 last year and although they have a lot of new players, they have traditionally been good in class B over several years. I think we match up with them well and it will be a heck of a ball game Friday night.
“Davenport runs the ball a lot and they have a runningback they get the ball to a lot and they are a totally different team than they were the first two weeks,” he said. “The can score touchdowns throwing the ball, but the run sets up those passes.
“Defensively, I expect to see them blitz us a lot. They are extreme disciplined and coach (John) Greenfield does a great job with them. He has been there a long time and you can tell these kids are used to this. While our kids are learning our defense, their kids know what it is expected, it’s what they have done every year.”
The Patriots did have a break-out night running the ball last week in a 70-40 win over Summit Christian, rolling up 437 yards on the ground. SWCS will again rely on the running of Zac Beshears (189 yards rushing last week), Gabe Ross (106 yards rushing) and Zeke Williams (82 yards rushing) to attack the Davenport defense.
The Patriots still have the threat through the air with quarterback Asher Hoover, whose favorite target has been Ross and Nate Gerber.
“Davenport has blitzed more than any team we have seen this year,” Jensen said. “They will blitz on either the run or pass, so we will practice that all week.
“It’s our hope that we go into this game and go from zero to 60 in the first few plays than a whole quarter,” he said. “We have started slow two weeks in a row and we really need to hit it on the run. So our focus will be on getting out of the gate from the start.
“I feel we can run on this team, but we will have to throw the ball more this week,” he said. “If we just sit and try to run over and over, they will have us nailed, we need to open the game up more.”
