CHESAPEAKE, VA (WTKR)- There may be some high school football teams and fans who wrote off Deep Creek prior to the playoffs beginning. It didn't take long for the Hornets to teach them a lesson.
Deep Creek, the No. 7 seed in the Region 5A playoffs, stunned No. 2 seed Frank Cox last Friday night in the region quarterfinals, 21-20. The win moved the Hornets on to this Friday night's region semifinals, where they'll look to pull off another upset against No. 3 seed Salem.
"If we execute, we can go with the best teams in the area," head coach Andre Twine said. "We knew that Cox would have a good team, but we game-planned well for them and we can match-up with them and we executed, did our part and won the game."
"Usually after the second half, we come out slower," added junior lineman Ricardo Foreman. "This week we're going to come out fast and keep going."
Twine's squad entered the postseason with a 5-5 record, but ran quite a gauntlet in the Southeastern District. The head coach feels that schedule prepared his team well for the playoffs as his Hornets took down a Falcons' squad that was 9-1 and now they look to continue their ride this Friday night.
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19 area football programs take field for region semifinals Friday
"We're put in a playoff situation with teams like Oscar Smith and King's Fork and Nansemond River and so forth," he pointed out. "We understand at that point how we can play football and we feel like we can hang with anybody in our 5A region when we play good football."
Salem enters Friday's region semifinal 9-2 and topped Bayside, 14-7, to survive and advance last week. The Sun Devils boast one of the best running backs in the area with Willie Moore, among other strengths, and the Hornets know they'll have their work cut out for them. With execution, however, Deep Creek thinks it could celebrate another upset win and schedule practices for at least another week.
"It would be great," Twine said of a potential win. "We're going to play our hardest and put a good showing on the football field. A win would be great for us and we'd like to have that on Friday night."
"It would mean the world to me," Foreman added. "I ain't never played in a championship game like that."
Deep Creek and Salem kick off Friday night at 7:00 on the Sun Devils' home field.
