Pigskin Picks playoffs round 2

Sampson County had one team advance to the second round of the NCHSAA football playoffs, and they did so in big fashion. The Lakewood Leopards hosted the Northampton County Jaguars last Friday, and sent them on the long journey home with a 56-6 at the hands of a strong defensive performance, with an offense that was firing all game long to match.

Lakewood holds the No. 10 seed in the 1A playoffs, and with some help, they host the second round game, too. No. 26 Pamlico County had a huge upset over No. 7 Bear Grass Charter, winning 50-34. Had Bear Grass won, the Leopards would be the lower seed, and would have had to travel for their second game, but since they are the higher seed for this matchup, they will play host to the Hurricanes.

Pamlico County @ Lakewood, Friday, 7 p.m.

Lakewood scored with ease in their last matchup, and all but one came on the ground. The lone outlier was a pick-six, one of many turnovers the Leopards had on the night. Calvin Lacewell, Jr. was back in action for them, but he saw somewhat of a limited role, as Chris Carr and Nakai Owens contributed many of the yards on the ground. The statistics hadn’t been updated from last week’s contest at the time of writing this, but through the regular season, Lakewood had 2,261 rushing yards and a whopping 35 touchdowns.

Defensively, one of the standouts in the game was Landon Neal, a rising monster on the defensive line. He plays more of a traditional defensive end that is nearly forgotten in the upper echelons of football, now replaced by the edge rusher position. But, he plays his position well in both the pass and run games, and it shows in the stats column with his 27 total tackles. Nakai Owens and Dashaun Carr with 89 and 83, respectively. The Leopards’ defense has been a wrecking ball throughout the season, with a stout front and the defensive backfield to match. The team has 13 interceptions and 11 fumble recoveries so far, tallying 24 takeaways.

The Hurricanes come into this game with a 2-9 record, and one of them came in their massive playoff upset last week. The other half of their wins came against Washington County, who also went 2-9, on Sept. 30, by a score of 26-22. They have scored 274 points compared to 478 points being scored on them thus far. Usually, in upsets like theirs, it’s a nail-biter that comes down to the end. Instead, they blew the doors off Bear Grass and sailed into the second round.

They had 268 yards rushing and five touchdowns in the game, which is about on par with their 2,585 yards and 28 touchdowns on the season. They have similar numbers to Lakewood on offense, but the defensive statistics are what tell the story.

Pamlico County only has 375 tackles this year. Lakewood, through only 10 games, had 641, and many more came their way last week. The Leopards are a much better team at stopping offenses than the Hurricanes are, and that will show Friday.

I’ll take Lakewood advancing to the third round by a score of 42-28.