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Red Devils take next step in hunt for second state title

Head coach Nick Bazzle faces his alma mater again tonight in the third round

By Chris Hobbs | Hickory Daily Record

Published: November 27, 2009

NEWTON - Nick Bazzle spent a bit of time on Wednesday afternoon trying to get something besides the East Lincoln Mustangs in his cross hairs.

Well, now it's Friday morning… and the Mustangs, who usually run like deers, are right back on the radar.

Newton-Conover (12-1) visits East Lincoln (11-2) tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the third round of the state 2AA high school football playoffs, with the winner advancing to next Friday's West 2AA championship game.

A year ago, Newton-Conover was the West 2A champ and won a state title, while East Lincoln was the West 2AA champ and lost 21-7 to Reidsville in a state title game.

That alone is plenty enough for the coaches to digest, let alone throw in that the teams opened this season against each other (Newton-Conover won 27-19 at Gurley Stadium) and that East Lincoln is Bazzle's alma mater.

"I'm gonna go sit in a tree stand and think about something besides football," Bazzle said by cel phone Wednesday afternoon as he and his two boys, Matt and A.J., headed into some woods near Claremont. "But I can't guarantee that will happen.

"(Doing this) is a big-time reliever. I just make myself quit thinking about things and sit back and relax.

"Wednesday night is my night off. I'm a film watcher Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays and I do that during the day on Wednesdays.

"But when I go home on Wednesdays, all the hay is in the barn as far as I'm concerned.

"I watch SportsCenter or something on TV besides our opponent."

At any other time in a football season, the biggest ammo Bazzle carries is the countless hours he drains trying to find every nick and cranny that might give his Red Devils a chance to win.

In a game that has a 10-point buck value, they could win tonight.

They also could just as easily lose.

"You just gotta take what ya got… and hope your kids play hard," said Bazzle. "You try to survive one week at a time. It's all you can do."

Getting away with his boys probably provided good therapy for Bazzle, a former star linebacker at East Lincoln who graduated in 1980.

He'll face some challenges and also some tough decisions tonight:

-- As of Wednesday, three key Red Devils – linemen Tevin Jones (temperature of 101) and Dylan Scism (high ankle sprain) and linebacker Riddim Hackett (stinger in shoulder) – were probable.

-- The Mustangs are fast and two-dimensional on offense, especially with quarterback Preston Perry at the controls.

-- The last time the Red Devils and Mustangs met, Newton-Conover fumbled eight times (losing four), threw one interception, had a punt blocked and got 14 penalties for 140 yards.

The last of the three isn't likely to happen again, but Bazzle went hunting this week for sure-fire ways to make sure it does not.

"We were lucky to win it, doing all that stuff," Bazzle said. "We were just lucky. You usually don't play like that and win.

"But they are not the same team as they were. They are a whole lot better. If we come close to those stats Friday, we'll be putting our gear up in the shed."

Bazzle likes having time to hunt when he can, but doesn't want any free time until after the state 2AA title game is played.

Last week, when his Red Devils faced much the same situation - beating Bandys or going 0-2 this year against the Trojans and going home - they found the spark they needed.

That encourages Bazzle.

"Hopefully, we can build on that performance," he said. "We responded well."

In an October loss at Bandys, the Red Devils fell behind by 20 points and lost 20-9. Last Friday night, Newton-Conover found the right seams in the Trojans' defense and turned on their speed to win handily (33-14).

"(East Lincoln) is a team very similar to Bandys," Bazzle said. "But with what they do, they might be a little more dangerous because of the speed element they have.

"Their quarterback is another good thrower. But in their offense he is a big-time run threat and they use him to run as much as throw.

"He can fly. And they've probably got four or five people that can run faster than anybody we've got. It's a huge concern."

Again, there's that run-like-a-deer challenge the Mustangs have always had. With that kind of speed, even trading TDs sometimes doesn't give a team a good shot at winning because the game-winning score can come so quickly.

"I'm not sure they are gonna give up the big play," said Bazzle. "And they may make us work real hard for every score we have. That's not bad if we let them score in 15 seconds and we take 15 minutes.

"But somewhere or another we gotta stop them, eat the clock up and score.

"If you can get a stop and a two-TD lead and hopefully not do anything stupid, you can trade scores all night. It's kinda what I hope will happen."

The main two Red Devils who can probably get that done, running behind a gifted offensive line, are running back Octavius Harden and quarterback Sam Royall.

If the Red Devils have a deer, it's Harden. His teammates called him Octane – "I think he developed that name this year when he started breaking things open," Bazzle said – and Royall gets high marks for standing strong in the face of being The Hunted.

When Bazzle said Royall would be the starting quarterback in August, everyone speculated if he could run the Red Devils' option offense as efficiently and mistake free as A.J. Bazzle did the year before.

"We put a lot of faith in him, like we did A.J. last year," Nick Bazzle said. "Our whole offense starts with him. The kids rely on him to do his part right.

"We say 'Don't make our triple option a double option.'

"He's made defenses have to account for the quarterback. If you don't, he'll have well over 100 yards rushing. As long as he's accountable, everybody gets there."

The "there" ahead is the state semifinals, where the Red Devils would play fifth-seeded Canton Pisgah in Canton or eighth-seeded Salisbury in Newton. Looming on the other side of the bracket is probably the biggest deer of them all – unbeaten Reidsville.

We know Bazzle would love at least two more Wednesday football-by-morning and deer-hunting-by-afternoon breaks.

If he's lucky, by then he will have figured out a game plan that works in the woods as well.

"You would think when dad gets older, he would have the easiest (deer) stand," Bazzle said, chuckling. "But the boys… they get the good stands and I gotta get up in a portable one.

"They make the old man work when they should be the ones doing it."