PREP FOOTBALL: Beauregard excited for first 5A playoff game

On a fourth-and-goal from the 3, Patrick Lockhart crashed through the line, sacked the quarterback — jarring the ball loose — then picked up the fumble and ran it 90 yards the other way.

Too bad it happened during Wednesday’s practice. And the smeared quarterback was Beauregard scout teamer David Winslett.

“Coach gets mad at us for hitting,” the Hornets’ senior defensive end said, still a little winded from his trip down the sidelines. “But he said treat it like the last play of the game. So I had to.”

Smitty Grider’s probably not crazy about the Hornet-on-Hornet violence. But he’s got to love the enthusiasm.

That’s how it’s been all week as Beauregard prepares for its first Class 5A playoff game, a jaunt down to Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile to take on LeFlore on Friday.

A lot of excitement, a lot of pace, a lot of pads clashing against each other.

“Intensity’s been up,” sophomore linebacker Dre Finley said. “Every practice’s been good so far.”

That’s preferable to last Friday night, when the Hornets turned in a flat performance against an undefeated Handley team and left with their worst defeat since 2005.

The Beauregard defense, which had given up 11.5 points per game in the two games entering Handley, was torched for 48 points.

“Our mind wasn’t really on the game. It was past it, on the playoffs,” Lockhart said. “We tried to treat it like a playoff game. But that first little smack in the mouth, I guess, we were like, ‘Forget it. We got the playoffs.’”

Needless to say, that’s not going to cut it against the Rattlers.

A fact Grider knows all to well.

“That was a total meltdown on everybody’s part,” Grider said. “It was very uncharacteristic of the way we play defense. We’ll never let that happen again.

“But we put it behind us.”

As they showed in most every game this season, the Hornets’ defense has the right mixture of experience and talent to be a pretty special group.

Finley, in his first year starting, took one of the unit’s perceived weaknesses — inexperience at interior linebacker — and turned it into a plus, leading the team in tackles through nine games with 79 tackles and 11 for a loss.

The sophomore said he has fully transitioned into the defense’s signal-caller.

“I didn’t know I was playing that role until, like, August,” Finley said. “It took all of August, I was still learning during the first game. It was kind of hard, but I came through. I really wanted to start, so I pulled through with it.”

The Hornets’ front seven will have a key role in putting pressure on the Rattlers’ quarterback duo, helping out the secondary’s mostly man-to-man scheme.

Grider said the fewer touches 6-foot-1 junior wideout Danny Woodson gets, the better.

“He’s an unbelieveable talent, probably the best receiver we’ve ever faced at Beauregard,” Grider said. “The corners are gonna have to have a good night.”

The talent’s there.

As is the motivation, especially for the players that were part of the 2008 squad that missed out on the postseason by 4 points.

And, while the Hornets will be saying goodbye to 5A next season, they’re looking to stick around a little while longer.

“We don’t want this to be our last 5A football game in two years,” Grider said. “We feel like we got a team that can go deep.”

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