MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — After 11 years, Preston is back in the state football playoffs. And although certainly an accomplishment for coach Jonathan Tennant and his Knights, it comes with a big stipulation.
The No. 16 Knights (4-6) will open up the Round of 16 against the returning state champion Martinsburg (10-0). And without getting into all of Martinsburg’s accolades — all of which are well known by now — it will be a tall order for Preston to come out with a win.
“They don’t have any weaknesses,” Tennant said. “We’ve gone through all 10 games and I haven’t seen a (single) weakness. We just have to try and throw them off their game and hope they’ve overlooked us. They’ve had a week off, so that could either be a good thing or a bad thing.”
As for trying to throw Martinsburg off its game, the first step for Preston is to focus on the basics: Fundamentals and stopping those strong players busting through to open field.
“We’re more concentrated on ourselves and what we need to do,” Tennant said. “Martinsburg averages 50 points a game but are very basic in what they do — they just do it at a high level. We’ve seen (it) all before, just not from them. We’ve been working on fundamentals, and playing down on the tackles and hold on unit the cavalry gets there.”
Those explosive playmakers include Naieem Kearney in the halfback spot, Jarod Bowie out wide and Elijah Banks in the pocket. Kearney ended the regular season with 730 yards and eight scores on 85 carries, plus 47 yards and two touchdowns on five receptions. Bowie racked up 819 yards and 13 touchdowns through his impressive 10 weeks, and his receiving touchdowns lead the team out of 32 total passing touchdowns thrown by Banks. He is also a threat on special teams, picking up five touchdowns and 438 yards on nine punt returns.
The most impressive player on the Bulldogs’ roster, Banks has totaled 1,843 yards (19.61 average) while going 94 of 147. He’s thrown five interceptions and has been sacked twice.
All of that brings with it the fact that Preston, like most teams, don’t have the scout team to emulate those three.
“Even teams we played on our schedule, it’s a different speed,” Tennant noted of the playmakers. “So our practices have been the same as the last three or four weeks. We’ve put in a couple of wrinkles defensively to confuse them, but our main goal is to keep them in front of us.”
And even though defeating Martinsburg is a near-impossible feat, Tennant doesn’t want his kids to hang their heads at the end of the game should they lose. In his mind, they’ve already won in different ways.
“Nobody predicted us to be here — most predicted us to be 1-9. Nobody predicted us to beat University or to be in the playoffs,” he said. “We get another opportunity to play and measure ourselves against the very best. We’ll learn a lot of lessons about ourselves and take those home to motivate us in the offseason.
“The more players we have (next year) the better we’ll be. We were expecting a lot more kids than we had this year. For whatever reason (those 10-12 kids we gave reps to as freshmen and sophomores) decided not to (come back). But it’s worked out, we’ve had a good season and I wouldn’t trade the 36 kids I have now for anything. I told the kids to enjoy the experience. The spotlight is going to be on us so go down, give 100 percent and show people what Preston football is about.”
Kick is set for 1:30 p.m. The winner will face No. 9 Spring Mills. The Cardinals barely defeated No. 8 Greenbrier East 28-27 Friday night.
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