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'Dogs look for first win against archrival
CHARLESTON -- For the 121st time, the Sikeston and Charleston football teams will meet on the gridiron on Friday night at 7 p.m. at Marshall Field.
The Bulldogs own a commanding 83-33-4 advantage on Charleston, but it's been the Bluejays that have been celebrating lately, winning the last two seasons.
Once again, Charleston will be the favored team as the Bluejays enter the game ranked No. 2 in the Southeast Missouri media poll after last week's 21
-7 win against Kennett. The Bulldogs come in unranked after a 38-8 setback to Caruthersville.
But second-year head coach Al Marshall says ranking and records won't matter tomorrow night.
"I say this every year and I mean it from the bottom of my heart, it doesn't matter who's supposed to beat who or who's got what, one way or the other when it comes down to the Bluejays and the Bulldogs, it's going to be a dogfight," said Marshall. "I've been to a lot of Charleston-Sikeston games my whole life and I don't ever remember when it was a game that wasn't hard-
fought."
The Bluejays won last week's game, but it came at a price, namely to starting quarterback Justin Clark, who sprained his ankle and was forced to leave the game.
Marshall said Clark has been cleared to practice and will probably resume his starting duties against Sikeston.
"He iced it all weekend and there's still some swelling there, but I think he'll be okay," said Marshall.
Without Clark, the Bluejay offense struggled against Kennett.
A healthy Clark can provide quite a weapon behind center as he is a dangerous runner with the ball with good size and speed.
"The do some option, they do some roll-outs with him," said Sikeston coach Jerry Dement of Clark. "He actually throws the ball pretty darn well and he's so athletic. We're going to have to put some pressure on him and hopefully force him into some bad decision."
The Bluejays also offer up one of the top running backs in the area in senior Joseph Watts, who rushed for 108 yards on 14 carries last week. Watts has rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of his three varsity seasons.
"He's a slasher, he's got good vision and he's got a lot of experience," said Dement. "We're going to have to get to him, that's for sure."
Jerquawn Sherrell, a burly sophomore running back, rushed for 70 yards on 12 carries.
Jamarcus Williams, a 6-foot-5, 210-pound tight end, is one of the top receivers in the area. He caught a pass for a touchdown last week.
Williams is so much bigger than most team's secondary players that the Bluejays simply loft it up to him and let him out-jump the defenders for the pass.
Jerrell Quinn, another rangy 6-4 receiver, caught a touchdown last week as well.
Last week the Bulldog defense had pretty good pass coverage, but they were absolutely shredded by Caruthersville's talented running backs.
Plus, while Sikeston moved the ball effectively on the Tigers, costly fumbles thwarted several scoring chances.
"I've watched the tape and to me the game was closer than what the score indicated against Caruthersville," said Marshall. "Sikeston was inside the 5 twice and fumbled. If you put those two scores in early in the game it might have been a whole different situation."
Dement said both problems have been priorities this week in practice.
"We didn't tackle and we didn't hang onto the ball," said Dement. "Those are things we preach all the time -- ball security and good tackling -- and we didn't do either one of those and that was the difference obviously. We've really addressed those things this week and hopefully we'll come out and be a better ballclub on Friday."
The speedy Byron Davis showed his full arsenal against the Tigers, piling up 279 all-purpose yards while scoring Sikeston's only touchdown of the game.
Junior quarterback Chase Ferrell was solid against the Tigers, throwing for 129 yards.
"I've got a lot of respect for Ferrell," said Marshall. "I think he's a fine quarterback. Byron Davis is a heck of a runner and No. 2 (Michael) Payne, he's a gifted skill position guy with a lot of talent. Plus they've got a lot of tough hard-nosed runners in 45 (Tyler Dame) and 8 (Jerod Scott) and some big, strong linemen. They look pretty good to me after watching them on film."
Charleston managed to pull out a hard-fought 14-8 victory against the Bulldogs last season.
Sikeston had an opportunity to possibly win the game in the final two minutes but a fumble in the red zone allowed the Bluejays to walk away with the victory.
Dement is hoping to change the fortunes of his program which has been seemingly snake-bitten the last couple years with untimely mistakes.
"It's a big rival game and there's a lot of pride between the two communities -- it's the 121st game," said Dement.
"It's a big game. We need a win. The kids need a win. They've been working hard and they're ready to get out of their slump. We've had good practices this week and the kids have rallied around each other."
When asking Marshall of his team's strategy against the Bulldogs, his response was pretty simple.
"Our game-plan is to win man," he said. "Just to win."