A.L. Brown looking good heading into second round

By Bill Kiser

Kannapolis Citizen

A.L. Brown’s coaching staff isn’t worrying so much about how many yards the Wonders gain, or how many yards they give up to opponents during the playoffs.

No, the only statistic they’re worrying about is the final score — and whether Brown is on the winning side of it.

“Stats and everything like that don’t really mean a lot this time of the year,” Wonders defensive coordinator Noah Lyon said. “The biggest thing right now is surviving and advancing. The biggest thing is getting to the next round.”

That will certainly be the case Friday night, when A.L. Brown hosts South Piedmont Conference rival Marvin Ridge in the second round of the 3AA state playoffs.

Game time is 7:30 p.m. at Kannapolis Memorial Stadium.

The Wonders (10-2), seeded fourth in the 3AA West bracket, needed another big game from quarterback Jamill Lott in beating 13th-seeded Lake Norman 

42-27 in their playoff opener on Nov. 15.

Lott threw for career highs of 207 yards and four touchdowns — two going to wide receiver T.J. Johnson — and ran for a team-best 71 yards for Brown, which had to deal with a Wildcats defense geared towards stopping the run.

“We knew they would do that going in,” Wonders offensive line coach Todd Hagler said. “We were going to have to throw it a little bit, and Jamill and our receivers both played well.

“We were able to protect Jamill just enough, but as many people as they brought sometimes, it was Jamill finding the open space in their blitz.”

Johnson caught three passes for a season-best 126 yards, including TD receptions of 42 and 62 yards. Lott also had TD passes of 30 yards to Colby Reid and 15 yards to Zach Massey, and Travis Riley had scoring runs of 9 and 1 yards.

While Brown did commit two turnovers — including Lott’s fourth interception, and his first in the last five games — it was Lake Norman’s miscues that set up two Wonders scores. A 

65-yard interception return by Xavier Watson led to Riley’s first TD run, and a blocked punt in the third quarter set up Riley’s second score.

“When we got the ball down in the red zone, we were able to convert into points every time,” Hagler said. “That was huge for us.”

Brown learned a lot about keeping turnovers to a minimum in its last game against the 12th-seeded Mavericks (7-5), who advanced to the second round with a 14-6 upset win over No. 5 seed Forestview last week.

While the Wonders held Marvin Ridge to just seven first downs and 104 yards total offense in their Sept. 26 meeting, they also committed five turnovers. That allowed the Mavericks to stay in contention in a game that Brown eventually won in overtime 23-20.

“To their credit, they’ve got a very good football team,” Hagler said. “Hopefully, we’ll play a lot better than we did the first time.”

However, Marvin Ridge has made some adjustments to its offense since its last appearance at Memorial Stadium, moving senior Diego Lawrence from wideout to tailback.

Lawrence accounted for most of the Mavericks offense in their first-round playoff win _ the first in the program’s two-year history. He ran for 111 yards on 16 carries, and caught five passes for 84 more yards.

“Their offense has changed,” Lyon said. “Early in the year, they used him only half of the time in the backfield. Now he predominately in the backfield, and they’re creating new ways to get the ball to him. … They are a much improved team offensively than when we played them the first time.

“They know what we did, and we know what they did. So we’re going to put some wrinkles in that hopefully keeps them off balance, and they’ll probably put in some things to try and keep us off balance.”