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Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

West Laurens comes up short in playoff bid

DEXTER — For the past two weeks, West Laurens dedicated most of its defensive energy to one player.

In theory, the plan was simple. Stop Burke County’s electric quarterback Terrell Brigham, the Raiders thought, and there would be a chance their playoff destiny could be achieved.

Late Friday night, the execution of that plan was proven to be easier said than done.

The senior signal-caller passed for 191 yards and rushed for four scores of his own to propel Burke County to a 42-35 win over West Laurens, sending the Bears into the GHSA Class AAA playoffs and forcing the Raiders to be on the outside looking in once again.

“He’s something else; he’s a heck of a player,” West Laurens head coach Mark Pemberton said of Brigham. “We knew coming in that we were going to have to stop him and try to contain him a little bit. We didn’t know if we could stop him or not. But he’s one heck of a quarterback; he does a lot of things well.”

Coming off an open date the Raiders were afforded extra time to prepare for the zone and counter reads Pemberton knew Brigham liked to run.

But as the quarterback rushed for another 191 yards on 30 carries, that extra practice proved futile.

“A lot of runs with him are inside the tackles, and we worked hard the last two weeks to try to get some of that counter stuff and zone stuff stopped, but he just kept making plays,” Pemberton said.

In addition to making plays offensively, Brigham even made one play defensively that helped ice the game with just minutes remaining.

As West Laurens’ offense tried to continue its trend of responding to every Burke County score, it ran out of steam on one fourth-quarter drive when quarterback Ross Miles threw an interception that tipped into the hands of Brigham, who was playing defensive back.

Following the interception, Brigham led the Bears on a five-play drive that ended with a 5-yard pass into the end zone with nearly four minutes remaining. The score extended Burke County’s lead to two touchdowns and was just enough to hold off the surging Raiders.

“We call on these guys (like Brigham) to get us out of these troubling situations, and they did that,” Burke County head coach Eric Parker said.

Despite getting one final possession with seconds remaining after scoring a touchdown, West Laurens saw another late-game drive end in an interception.

“It’s another step. We already made tremendous improvement from the first of the year,” Pemberton said. “And we’ve got a bunch of these (players) coming back so we’re looking forward to the challenge. And I think they’re going to respond to us, and hopefully they’ll be even better next year.”