No. 5 Scotland begins hopeful playoff run against No. 28 Rocky Mount

Editor’s note: Offensive player stats for Rocky Mount were unavailable from last Friday’s game against Northern Nash.

LAURINBURG — Coming off of a loss can be difficult for some teams, especially one against a rival. For the Scotland Fighting Scots, it’s what they’re facing after suffering a 35-28 defeat to Richmond this past Friday night.

However, it’ll need to be put behind them quickly, with the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s 3A state playoffs beginning this week.

In recent years, Scotland has been fortunate in the playoffs, making it to at least the fourth round in eight of the last 13 seasons (including the 2020-21 COVID-19 season, when they lost 37-16 to New Bern in the first round).

Fifth-seeded Scotland (8-2) will look to continue that success this year but will have to get past the 28th-seeded Rocky Mount Gryphons in the first round on Friday night at Pate Stadium to do so.

“We’ve traditionally been a team that when we get in the playoffs, we typically make a run,” Scotland head coach Richard Bailey said. “If our guys will stay together, and I felt like we were after Friday night, we have a chance. And I think everybody knows this time of the year, if you lose, it’s done. And for those seniors, it means a lot. And for those underclassmen, I always tell them, don’t take it for granted because we’ve got some pieces right now that are as good as we’ve had since I’ve been here.”

Rocky Mount finished the regular season at 3-6 — their first sub-.500 record before the playoffs since 2017 — and went 3-3 in the split 2A/3A Big East Conference, with wins over Bunn, Roanoke Rapids, and Franklinton, to come in fourth place. Their most recent loss came in a 59-24 final against Northern Nash last Friday.

Despite their record, the Gryphons aren’t the average team to prepare for, as they run an offense that most coaches don’t see very often, including Bailey.

“They’re a wing-T team,” Bailey said. “Very multi-formational, and the wing-T is a very intricate offense. It’s going to be very difficult for our scout team to give us a very good look because it’s just not something we typically see or that our kids typically do. (They’re) very run heavy, I mean, extremely run heavy. Going into (last) Friday night’s game, they’d thrown the ball 33 times all year. They threw it eight or nine times Friday night, which was the highest they’d thrown in a game.”

The Gryphons have three running backs relied heavily upon: Isaiah Silver, Ty’lik Harrell, and C’quarhion Mitchell. Heading into last week’s game, Silver had 102 carries for 725 yards and seven touchdowns, Harrell had 186 rushes for 597 yards and three TDs, and Mitchell had 59 rushing attempts for 452 yards, five scores, and a team-leading 68 receiving yards on two catches.

“You’ve got to commit enough people to (stop the run),” Bailey said. “We’re definitely going to make the box a heavy box. The teams that have given us problems are the ones that also have the ability to pull it and throw. We’ve been pretty successful against running teams. We’ve given up a few plays here or there, but stopping the run has been what we’ve done the best. It’s the passing that’s gotten us.”

Silver has the most pass attempts by any player on Rocky Mount’s roster, as he played quarterback earlier in the season, but the team’s current signal-caller is Alex Beasley.

Before Rocky Mount’s game against Northern Nash, Beasley was 1-of-7 passing for 33 yards and a TD with just 10 rushing yards on four attempts, and their receptions leader was wide receiver Jaden Haney with three grabs for 41 yards.

“They’re one of those teams that they’re going to try to get three yards in a cloud of dust and then hopefully get you to line up wrong and maybe hit you with a big play,” Bailey said. “And when they do throw it, typically, people are open because they’re so run heavy. Everybody’s committing to stop the run (and) they end up leaving somebody uncovered. They don’t have a lot of big-time receiving threats.”

Linebacker Jack McKellar leads the Gryphons with 52 tackles (17 solo) and also has seven tackles for loss and a sack; defensive lineman Denari Harrison has a team-best five sacks; and Mitchell is Rocky Mount’s interception leader with two.

In five of the Gryphons’ six losses (excluding Northern Nash), they’ve allowed over 230 rushing yards. And with the Scots averaging 288.5 rushing yards a game and having one of the nation’s top RBs in Zay Jones, who has 251 carries for 2,064 yards and 33 TDs on the ground, Bailey said his game plan is to pound the football.

“No doubt that we’re going to try to run the football; that’s what we do,” Bailey said. “We’ve got one of the better offensive lines since I’ve been here. We want to take advantage of that as much as we can. Ji’San (McPhatter) proved Friday night that he can run the football. You’ll probably see a little bit more of that moving forward. We’re going to do what we do, and we’re going to try to score as many points as we can because it’s one of those where we’re not going to shut them out. They’re too diverse for us to think we’re going to have (a) shutout. But I do feel like we’ll have the ability to score as long as we continue to do what we’ve been doing.”

While running the ball may seem like the recipe for success, a key ingredient is to score early as Scotland tends to win more often when that happens.

“In the games that we’ve lost, we haven’t finished drives early in the games,” Bailey said. “Friday night was the first time we hadn’t scored on the first drive of the year. But we still didn’t capitalize in the red zone two other times in the first half. And that became the difference in the game. We’re going to work hard on our inside-the-20 (yard line)-type offense this week and try to clean up some of the problems that have hurt us in short-yardage situations. We’ve got to make sure that we finish drives.”

Friday’s game is set for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.