FAYETTEVILLE — Atkins must quickly regroup after losing its shot at the 4-3A Conference championship last week with a 35-0 loss at Charleston.
Second place in the league is still up for grabs, and Atkins (8-1, 5-1) can still earn the spot with a victory at Lavaca (6-3, 4-2) on Friday. The Golden Arrows stayed in contention for second place last week with a 35-24 victory at Paris.
Charleston (9-0, 6-0) secured the 4-3A Conference championship with its victory against Atkins, and the Tigers need a victory over Lamar (6-3, 3-3) to finish the regular season undefeated.
Friday's matchup will be another tough road game for Atkins after its disappointing effort at Charleston. Charleston led 28-0 at halftime and held the conference's rushing leader, Terence Bobo, to 80 yards on the ground.
Bobo ran for 33 yards on the second play from scrimmage, but he fumbled and Charleston converted the mistake into a touchdown.
"We were down 14-0 before we knew it, and Charleston just whipped us from there," Atkins Coach Charlie Sorrels said. "We wanted to win the first quarter and take the crowd out of the game but didn't do it.
"You always want to get off to a good start on the road, and that'll be an important factor again Friday at Lavaca."
Lavaca is expecting a determined effort from Atkins, which lost 27-26 to the Golden Arrows last season. In fact, Lavacaclinched the league championship with its victory while Atkins finished the season 4-7.
"Atkins came in here last year after losing to Charleston and we had to fight for our lives to win by one point," Lavaca Coach Mark Headley said. "We know they'll be focused, especially with the winner getting the No. 2 seed."
Lavaca will lean on quarterback Timmy Overbey and running back Steffan Espinoza, who rushed for 247 yards and three touchdowns Friday against Paris. Espinoza had touchdown runs of 57, 51 and 50 yards while rushing for more than 200 yards for the third time this season.
Espinoza scored the winning touchdown against Atkins last season on a 4-yard run with 7:19 to play.
"Lavaca has very good onetwo punch with Overbey and Espinoza," Sorrels said. "Overbey can scramble, and he does a great job of running their offense. Espinoza has some speed, but he's more of a power back who runs downhill.
"They're very hard to contain."
Bobo is still a dangerous back with more than 1,400 yards rushing and 23 touchdowns this season. The Red Devils also have two of the league's top defenders in Cody Colburn and Sawyer Shannon, who each average about 10 tackles a game.
"We have to have a short memory about what happened last week and get back to playing like we're capable," Sorrels said. "We think we're still a pretty good team."
They'll meet another one Friday night in Lavaca.
Sports, Pages 26 on 10/31/2007