Both Eupora coach Stephen Edwards and Lake coach Tate Hanna thought their teams were evenly matched heading into Friday night’s Class 2A playoff game.
But turnovers are often big factors in playoff games and that was certainly the case on Friday night.
The Eagles forced five turnovers and broke open a tight game in the second half to take a 27-0 win over the Hornets.
Lake finishes the season with a 7-5 record while Eupora improves to 8-4 and will host Scott Central in the third round of the Class 2A playoffs.
Hanna was disappointed in the loss but pointed back to some old problems that have plagued his team all year long.
“The biggest thing, we couldn’t get anything going on offense,” Hanna said. “We tried to establish the run but just couldn’t get going. And field position didn’t help either. And then we turned the ball over five times. They fumbled five times and recovered every one of theirs. We lost it five times and in my mind, that was the difference in the game. We have struggled with turnovers all year long and it’s something we do every single day at practice. We have stressed it all year long and it bit us in the tail in this last game. But bottom line is, they just played better than we did.”
The majority of the first half was a punting contest until late in the second quarter when Edwin Herard hit Cameron Culpepper on a 15-yard pass. Culpepper made the Lake cornerback miss and then raced 78 yards for a touchdown. The PAT failed after a fumbled snap and Eupora led 6-0 at the half.
“I thought our defense played great except for one play in the first half,” Hanna said. “When it’s 6-0, it’s still a game. You are just one play away at that point. I thought we were about as evenly matched as we could be. If we play 10 times, we probably split. It’s just one of those things, they just made the plays and we didn’t.”
The Eagles got the ball to start the second half and went 44 yards in seven plays has Herard scored on a 10-yard touchdown run to give Eupora a 12-0 lead.
The Hornets then gave the ball right back with a fumble, setting Eupora up at the Lake 32. Two plays later, Preston Perkins scored on a 3-yard run as Eupora led 18-0. Culpepper ran in the two-point conversion and Eupora led 20-0
The Eagles added their last score on the first play of the fourth quarter as Herard capped off a 65-yard, six-play drive with a 9-yard touchdown run. Kimble Dillenger’s PAT was good Eupora led 27-0.
“One of the biggest things we had to do was stop their quarterback,” Hanna said. “And we didn’t do a very good job of stopping him. He was able to hit a few big pass plays on us that really hurt. But with out offense struggling, the defense was on the field way too much. Anytime you stay on the field that much on defense, they are eventually going to hit you with something.”
The Eagles had 161 yards rushing and 148 passing for 309 total yards. Herard had 15 carries for 98 yards while Travon McMillian had 27 yards on eight carries. Herard was 3-of-7 passing for 148 yards. Culpepper had one catch for 79 yards while Zak Morris had one catch for 39 yards. Makyrus Potts also had one catch for 30 yards.
Lake meanwhile had just 24 yards of total offense. D’Alex Jennings had 67 yards rushing on 14 carries but the Lake offense had 42 yards of negative yardage.
Johnny Johnson led the Lake defense with 8.5 tackles while Austin Kyzar had seven tackles. Seth Prestage, Shelton Porter, and Aaron Campbell each had 6.5 tackles apiece. Brady McGee had five tackles while Timothy Norris had 4.5 tackles. Danarrious Hughes also had an interception and Theory Harris had two tackles for loss.
“I told our kids after that game that 7-5 is a good record but it’s not what we wanted,” Hanna said. “I will never be satisfied with 7-5. The second round of the playoffs is good but we let some slip away from us this year. We had some injuries that hurt us but we didn’t finish in a lot of games. I don’t know what that is about but we just didn’t finish.”
