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Lovejoy wraps up district title with dismantling of Wylie East
BY Bill Conrad, bconrad@starlocalnews.com
LUCAS -- Lovejoy (10-0, 7-0) completed its first undefeated regular season in school history Friday night with a 58-32 victory over the Wylie East Raiders (7-3, 5-2).
The win gave the Leopards the 13-4A district title during the school's first year in Class 4A.
"I couldn't be more proud of these kids," said Matt Green, Lovejoy head coach. "We have high expectations at Lovejoy and our kids have never thought we were a 3A program that couldn't make this jump. We have a long way to go, but our team has shown up every day and worked hard."
"Bowman executed, read the defense and took what they gave him," Green said. "He only forced one ball into coverage all night and our receiver made a great play in the end zone. You don't see a freshman play like that very often."
Lovejoy wasted no time showing who the better team was Friday night. Junior Dan Sefcik returned the opening kickoff 74 yards to set the Leopards up inside Raiders' territory. The drive ended when senior Zach Saffle ran the ball in from the 1-yard line on fourth-and-goal after being stopped for no gain on the previous two plays.
Raiders senior running back Jabari Anderson quickly answered with a 1-yard run of his own to tie up the score, but the Leopards would score the next 23 points to open up a lead the Raiders' high-scoring offense would never overcome.
"Our defense did a spectacular job tonight," Green said. "We mixed our looks up and really got in the receivers' faces. I think we did a good job of stymieing them up front and our defensive front got after their quarterback all night."
East appeared to gain some of the momentum back shortly before half, cutting the 30-7 deficit to 30-22 after a second touchdown run by Anderson and a 30-yard touchdown pass from Garrett McCain to Marcell Ateman with 1:30 left in the first half.
However, as they would all night, the Leopards had an answer. With no timeouts remaining, Lovejoy embarked on an eight-play touchdown drive that ended with Sells catching a touchdown pass from Saffle to give the Leopards a 37-22 lead at the break.
With a lead, the Leopards went to their ground game in the second half with immediate results. On their first offensive play of the third quarter, Cullon Oldham-Greene ran 48 yards for a score. The run was far from Oldham-Greene's only big play of the night, as the senior finished with 12 carries for 155 yards.
Playing from behind for most of the game, East was never able to get its offense going. The Raiders feature three Division I commits in their receiving corps, but the Leopards' smaller secondary was able to limit McCain to only 174 yards on 16-of-34 passing and two touchdowns.
"Our secondary bent a little bit, but they didn't break," Green said.
The Raiders only real offensive threat was Anderson, who finished the game with 230 yards on 30 carries and two touchdowns.
One area that Green said his team will have to improve is penalties. The Leopards were flagged 12 times for 125 yards, including five personal foul penalties. While the total number of penalties concerns him, Green said it is not fair to simply look at the yardage since all penalties are not created equal.
"A lot of those penalties came because our secondary was trying to deal with those big receivers and that big tight end," he said. "That is going to happen when you are playing guys that big. When trying to bring them down you just grab what you can. The thing we did was play hard. A lot of the penalties were effort penalties because we were trying hard."
Sells spread the ball around to seven different receivers, with Sefcik leading the way with 106 yards on five catches, including a 78-yard score in the third quarter. Junior Chochy Luce hauled in five passes for 94 yards and one score, while Saffle caught two balls for 74 yards.
Oldham-Greene led the way on the ground, but he was joined by sophomore Chase Tucker who gained 52 yards on four carries, and Sefcik who picked up 40 yards on nine carries, including a 14-yard score that provided the final margin of victory.
Lovejoy returns to action as the top 13-4A seed in the Class 4A Division II playoffs. The Leopards face Hallsville Friday at City Bank Stadium in Forney.
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