The Wildcats (1-3) host rival Centerville (0-4) - which is looking to avoid starting 0-5 for the first time since 2018 - at 7 p.m. Friday in Springfield.
“They’re super dangerous right now, and we have to play our best game of the year against those guys,” Douglass said. “They’re well-coached, and they’re hungry for a victory and they’ll do anything to get it. We have to be on top of our game, making sure we’re on top of our special teams units and all three facets of the game.”
Despite their record, the Elks still have a strong team, Douglass said. They rallied from 17 points down to tie the game in the fourth quarter against Fairmont last week, but the Firebirds kicked a field goal as time expired to earn a 20-17 victory.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
A year ago, Springfield beat the Elks 17-3 in Centerville. From that point forward, the Elks reeled off nine straight victories to earn their first regional title since 1991.
They’re led by senior quarterback Shane Cole, a Youngstown State commit, and senior running back Parker Johnson.
“They’ve still got a good coaching staff, still got some good quality players, and been right there to receive a victory the last few weeks,” Douglass said. “For one reason or another, things happened, they’re getting behind eight ball and haven’t been able to complete what they started. They’ve still got the talent there. They’re a well-coached group. They’ve got a Division I quarterback and a Division I running back. They’ve got good players all over, but the ball just isn’t bouncing in their direction right now.”
After falling to Trotwood 16-13 in Week 3, Springfield beat Miamisburg 37-0. Defensively, they held the Vikings to 13 yards of total offense.
The key, Douglass said, has been the play of the Wildcats defensive line, particularly Royce Rogers, a Buffalo commit, and senior Preston Allen.
“Those two guys have done a good job for the last four games making sure we’re in the right spots and making it easy for our linebackers to make plays and our secondary guys to make plays,” Douglass said. “It all starts up front and I’m just happy with the performance that they had last week and hopefully they can continue to do that this week.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
The Vikings won the toss and opted to take the ball at the start of the second half. Springfield scored on a 100-yard TD run by Deontre Long in the first quarter and added 14 more points on an 8-yard run by Long and a 29-yard TD pass from CJ Wallace to Sherrod Lay to make it 21-0 at the half.
“We hadn’t started fast all year for the most part because I wanted to go on defense first (the first three weeks),” Douglass said. “CJ put the ball in a good place and I thought our offensive line had its best game as a group. We could’ve had another 80 to 200 yards of offense if we take away the penalties. That’s one area we’re not happy with and we just have to continue to work on those things.”
Springfield’s young squad will look to make it two in a row this week.
“(The win) was huge for them, but they know they were three plays away from being 3-1 if the ball bounces our way,” Douglass said. “I really believe the week before when we played Trotwood, that was our game that kind of got our mojo back and let us know that we could play with just about anybody.”
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