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W-W Tigers play in first half of game proved they're good enough to beat Lincoln County
Just nine months ago, Lincoln shut out the Tigers in a one-sided state championship game of the century. They are now, and have been since then, ranked No. 1 in Class A and are a shoe-in to repeat as state champs. But that's not the worst of it. The Tigers have to go over there again for this weekend's game. The best of it, however, is that Tiger Head Coach Russell Morgan knows his team is capable of beating them. "If we play like we did the first half against Thomson, we can beat them," he said. But half won't be good enough - it will take a whole game to beat one of the best Lincoln County teams in recent memory. "In 19 years of being here, I think this may be the best overall football team I've seen Lincoln County have," Morgan observed. "They have four kids that, on any play, can go the distance." Those kids include Brandon Barden, at quarterback, who "has improved greatly from last year and he runs the ball great," according to Morgan. "Also, Darrell Norman and Rontae Norman can go at any minute. "And they have a new speed guy at fullback, Franklin Jones, that can go the distance at any given time. "I don't think I've seen a team with that many weapons in singleor double-A," Morgan added. And even more than all that, Morgan says he doesn't know if Lincoln even has a weakness. On offense, he said, "they only run about five or six plays but every one of them, they do very well. And they have as good a defensive front as we will see all year. "If we don't beat them Friday, they won't get beat this year - they'll be 15-0." Concerning last Friday night's super-high-then-lower-than-low disappointment against Thomson, Morgan tried to find the bright side. "It's not all bad," he said. "The first half we played as good as we could possibly play." In fact, the Tigers held Thomson to just one first down (and that was on a penalty, not something they earned) and less than 40 yards of offense. "You can't ask much more than that," Morgan said. Offensively, W-W should have had 17 points but a holding call brought a touchdown back even though the hold was inconsequential to the play. "Things were going according to plan," Morgan said. "I don't think you could have wanted anything better to happen." Then it went sour in the third quarter with mistakes and turnover. Quickly, the Tigers' euphoria was lost and Thomson took the lead, scoring three touchdowns before the period ended. "I knew we had to have a lead going into the fourth quarter," Morgan said. With so many Tigers playing both ways and most of the Bulldogs just going one way or the other, the physical element of the game becamse a major factor. "It's going to tell on you in the end," Morgan said. However, it wasn't just the physical element. But as bad as it seemed, Morgan continued to look for the positive. "I'm not sure if the second half was played as bad as a lot of people think, or if it looked so bad because we kept turning the ball over and giving it to them down close," he said. "But we did make it look as bad as we could possibly make it look. "If it could go wrong, it went wrong. We fumbled the football, we dropped passes, we had a high snap on a punt. "The positive side of things from Friday night is that, after watching that first half, I know that we have the ability to be a good football team. I didn't know just how good we could be until after that first half. If we can put a whole game together like that first half, we can play with anybody."
The time to do that is this Friday, 8 o'clock, in Lincolnton.
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