A 10-win Rivercrest team held off Fountain Lake Friday night and pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 36-14 win in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs in Wilson.
Rivercrest (10-1) won the Class 3A state championship a year ago, but earned the No. 1 seed from the 4A-3 conference in the team's first year in 4A. Fountain Lake (6-5) needed three wins in the final three weeks to clinch the No. 5 seed from the 4A-7.
"We did not play well at all," said Fountain Lake head coach J.D. Plumlee. "We had too many turnovers and just did not play well."
Neither team had more than 300 yards of offense. Rivercrest led just 20-14 early in the fourth quarter.
"We go down and score on a big fourth down to make it 20-14, pin them back and doing a good job there," Plumlee said. "Then, we had them on like fourth-and-10, they get it, go score and make it 26-14."
Rivercrest senior running back Kentavious Robinson added two scores within four minutes in the final quarter to extend the lead to 33-14. Robinson is averaging 9.8 yards per carry with 1,688 yards and 19 touchdowns this season. He averaged 7.6 yards per carry for 121 yards and three scores on Friday.
"He got a couple of runs in the second half," Plumlee said. "A lot of it in the second half, honestly, were missed tackles. We had opportunities to hit him at the line of scrimmage. He was running through some tackles, but he is a really good football player."
Fountain Lake scored first on a two-yard touchdown run by senior Colson Simpson. Senior Joe Murphy's extra point gave the visitors a 7-0 lead.
A failed onside kick attempt was returned by junior Easton Elder 50 yards for a touchdown. Junior Riley Jones kicked the extra point to tie the game at 7-7.
An interception late in the half by senior Kyle Fortner stalled a Rivercrest drive to send the game into halftime still tied.
"We had ample opportunities," Plumlee said. "We had opportunities early, but give credit to their defense. They are really good up front and did some stuff that hurt our running game. We could not get anything going, but we fought and clawed on their home turf. We felt like we shot ourselves in the foot most of the night."
Wind affected Fountain Lake's return team to start the second half. The Cobras were slated to receive the kickoff to start the third quarter, but consecutive fumbles on the kickoffs and consecutive Rivercrest scoring drives put the Colts out ahead, 20-7.
A 14-yard touchdown pass by junior quarterback Ian Lacy to Murphy cut into the lead late in the third quarter. Murphy's kick made it 20-14.
Senior quarterback Demilon Brown averages 7.7 yards per carry for 1,056 yards and 19 touchdowns this season for Rivercrest. He averaged 5.2 yards Friday with 109 yards and one score.
"I thought our defense played extremely well," Plumlee said. "We tackled No. 3 (Brown) and No. 1 (Robinson) most of the night. We did not take advantage of the opportunities we had."
Rivercrest had 289 yards, including 273 on the ground. Fountain Lake had 288 yards of total offense, but the Cobras were held to 106 rushing yards on 38 attempts, an average of 2.8 yards per carry.
Lacy was 11-for-25 passing for 182 yards, a touchdown and three interceptions, two of which came in the fourth quarter. Murphy caught five passes for 72 yards.
Senior Ahman Johnson led the Cobras in receiving, as he did throughout the year, with six receptions for 110 yards.
"There are a lot of teams that after they lost four in a row in conference would have turned it in, not kept practicing, not kept fighting and our seniors did not allow that to happen," Plumlee said. "We are losing a good senior class, not only athletically, but leadership-wise.
"No one wants to lose your last one and, this time of year, there is only going to be one team that does not do that. When you are in the playoffs, you just cannot make that many mistakes and expect to win, especially when you are on the road."
Sports on 11/11/2018