Mountain Pine Manages To Hold Off Woodlawn, 26-22

It was a classic case of, as Woodlawn Coach Zach Meyer put it, "taking two steps forward and then three steps back " last Friday night when his Bears visited the Mountain Pine Red Devils in a key eight-man South Conference matchup. Woodlawn seemed to shoot itself in the foot every time it would make a positive play, only to have Mountain Pine capitalize on those mistakes in churning out a 26-22 victory over the Bears. The Red Devils improved to 42 overall and 4-0 in conference play, keeping them in contention to win their second straight South Conference championship should they beat Strong this Friday night on the road. Woodlawn, meanwhile, fell to 4-3 overall and 2-2 in conference action. The Bears still have a shot at finishing third in the conference by knocking off winless Marvell and 3-1 Spring Hill in their final two games, both of which are at home. The Bears were looking to end a three-game skid against the Red Devils but four turnovers, some untimely penalties and some mistakes along the offensive line that allowed Mountain Pine's quick defensive front to penetrate into the offensive backfield was the difference in the game. Statistically, it didn't look like much of a contest as Mountain Pine finished with 388 yards of total offense (353 of that coming on the ground) compared to just 159 yards for the Bears. But Woodlawn still managed to stay in the game for all four quarters. "Every time we got something going we would make a mistake," Meyer said. On offense, it would be a penalty or a missed blocking assignment. On defense, it might a failure to be in the proper position to contain the edge at critical points in the game. "Our defense had 80 plays," Meyer pointed out. "In the NFL they say to want to keep it to about 60." While the defense did give up some plays, it also made some big stops. The Bears had five fourth-down stops against the Devils at the Woodlawn 6, 8, 13, 48 and Mountain Pine 38. Garre...