Football: Frederick Douglass 32, North Point 10

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By Andy States
Content Manager, SMAC

It had been a year, but the horrible taste still lingered in Trey Massey's mouth. And as he and his Frederick Douglass teammates took the field at North Point on Friday night, Massey was going to do everything in his power to tasting it again.

"I told my team in the locker room that we're not going to feel the same way we felt last year at Patuxent," Massey said. "We lost, and I didn't like that feeling."

Douglass had been eliminated by Patuxent in the first round of the 2A South playoffs each of the past two seasons. But with Friday night's performance, Massey and Co. ensured this year's postseason stay will be a bit longer. Massey rushed for 112 yards to lead a powerful rushing attack, while the Douglass defense held North Point's offense to just 101 yards on the night in Douglass' 32-10 win. Douglass, the region's No. 3 seed, advances to play at top-seeded River Hill in the 2A South final next week.

"They're a very talented team," Douglass coach J.C. Pinkney said of second-seeded North Point. "They've been beating up on people pretty bad. We started peaking at the correct time. We still have a ways to go and a very tough opponent next week, but we're going to enjoy this one."

And for good reason. Douglass (9-2), which has six shutouts and has not surrendered more than 17 points in a game all season, allowed only a field goal on North Point's opening drive of the game. North Point (8-3) scored its only touchdown on a 63-yard Quentin Walker interception return on the last play of the third quarter. Furthermore, the visiting Eagles held the host Eagles' explosive running game in check. North Point's Arlando Scott has surpassed 200 yards in three of the four weeks leading into Friday's game, but Douglass limited him to 23 yards on 13 carries and held the host Eagles overall rushing total to just under 50 yards on the night.

"My defensive coordinator, Bill Johnson, has been coaching this game and at this particular school  for 28 years," Pinkney said. "He really stays on those guys. He does an excellent job scheming."

Offensively, it was business as usual for Douglass.

"The key was establish the running game first," said quarterback Richard Barber, who rushed for 58 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

The visitors did just that on their first possession, answering Taylor Griffin's 33-yard field goal with a nine-play, 70-yard drive that culminated with a six-yard touchdown scamper by Barber. Eight of the drive's nine plays were runs, and Douglass even converted the two-point attempt on the ground with Massey doing the honors.

That was only the beginning, as Douglass proceeded to grind out 246 yards on 42 carries. Barber, who passed for three touchdowns in last week's vital win over Gwynn Park, mixed in some passes, as well. The quarterback completed 10 of 14 attempts for 87 yards and one score.

Still, after Walker's interception return cut the Douglass lead to just 16-10 at the end of three, Douglass needed to find a way to answer. That was not to be a problem for the visitors, who, in all reality, have been competing for their postseason lives for three weeks prior to Friday night's first round.

"Our guys are battle-tested," Pinkney said. "This group has been together for the last two years, too. We've returned about 85 percent of that team that we had last year. These guys remember that pain we felt out there at Patuxent last year. They're not trying to experience that again."

Douglass never allowed the momentum to fully swing following Walker's interception return, instead embarking upon an 80-yard drive that concluded with Barber's second touchdown run of the night. The visitors then delivered the knockout blow after recovering a muffed ball on the kickoff, with a 40-yard touchdown drive. It took just five plays, with Emmanuel Paul cruising across the goal line from a yard out to cap it. Marcus DAguiar ran in the two-point conversion, the fourth successful conversion of the night, and the lead was 32-10 with 4 minutes 26 seconds to play.

The win puts Douglass back in a familiar spot of competing for a regional championship, which the team hasn't done over the past couple of seasons after the opening of Henry Wise High depleted the Eagles' numbers and dropped them down to the 2A ranks.

For North Point, on the other hand, the playoff experience was brand-new. The Eagles, in just their second varsity campaign, enjoyed a year in which the program saw a lot of firsts. It had its first senior class, won eight straight games between Weeks 2-9 to earn its first SMAC championship, and made its first playoff appearance Friday night.

"The kids came a long way," said North Point coach Ken Lane, referencing last year's 3-7 mark in the Eagles' inaugural varsity season. "From the end of last year, they had a great offseason, they prepared and came out in a tough conference. They got on a roll and won eight in a row -- a lot of great things. Things we talked about all year with the kids -- a lot of firsts."

North Point's first group of seniors undeniably left its mark on the program, with the SMAC banner that will adorn the gym walls as proof.

"Everything," Lane said of what the seniors meant to the program. "It's so hard -- I know the task they had in front of them. I've been through it at Westlake and seen what a first senior class kind of goes through, never having that older group of guys ahead of them to lead the way.

"They learned a lot going through last season and then came into this season and believed in themselves and I told them they set all the building blocks for all the groups to come."

astates@digitalsports.com

Douglass 32, North Point 10
D    8    0    8    16
N    3    0    7    0
First quarter
N    -    FG Griffin 32, 6:03
D    -    Barber 6 run (Massey run), 1:16
Third quarter
D    -    Onuoha 5 pass from Barber (Paul run), 4:50
N    -    Walker 63 interception return (Griffin kick), 0:00
Fourth quarter
D    -    Barber 3 run (Robertson pass from Barber), 6:48
D    -    Paul 1 run (D Aguiar run), 4:26

Top individual performers
Rushing
Douglass: Massey 14-112, Barber 11-58, Paul 15-51
North Point: Scott 13-23, Neal 9-20
Passing
Douglass: Barber 10-14-2 87
North Point: Neal 10-15-0 53
Receiving
Douglass: Bradley 4-35, McKenzie 3-28, D Aguiar 2-19, Onuoha 1-5
North Point: Walker 4-33, Griffin 1-15, Crowell 1-7