Northeast overcomes trying season for playoff berth

Three weeks ago, Northeast hadn't won a game. Two region wins later, and head coach Bruce Mullen has his team playing Brooks County in the first round of the GHSA Class AA playoffs.

It had been anything but a fairy tale season for Northeast (2-8).

In the season-opening loss to Southwest, a postgame brawl broke out, and nine Raiders were suspended for their role. The Raiders' second game was a heart-wrenching double-overtime loss to Rutland. After the game, several players left the team, and Mullen said a lot of people jumped off the Northeast bandwagon,

"Your game plan is for them to be all on the field, and then to not have them anymore is stressful for your team," Mullen said. "You've got to scramble around and find people for those positions."

But that didn't stop Northeast.

"Any time you get down like that, it's hard to get up," Mullen said. "But through the whole season, we struggled to get our team back on track. It's like putting the puzzle all back together."

The final pieces came together at the end of the season. The Raiders enter postseason play on a two-game winning streak, including last week's 20-19 win over Region 4-AA opponent Monticello. A goal-line stand with 1.7 seconds left saved the season.

"Last year, we were leading by 21 in the first half (against Monticello). We got a couple kids hurt early in the ballgame, and once they got hurt, we couldn't stop them," Mullen said. "We let a golden opportunity to get in playoffs slip through our hands. We (weren't) gonna let it happen to us this year."

Friday night, Mullen and his team travel to Brooks County (8-2), which hasn't lost since Aug. 28.

Taking down Brooks County will come down to the battle in the trenches, Mullen said.

"We haven't been playing really well up front," Mullen said. "We're gonna have to be able to play with them up front because they have some really good athletes playing for them."

Despite all the challenges this season, the Raiders will take the field looking to score a playoff upset.

"They've got to put 11 players on the field just like we've got to put 11 players," Mullen said. "If we go out there and keep trying and just fight, who knows what might happen? Records don't have anything to do with it. Don't ever count us out because we're gonna fight until the end."

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 8:05 PM with the headline "Northeast overcomes trying season for playoff berth ."