photo by Ben Hillyer

Centreville Academy’s Hunter Travis, Randy Bell and Emile Garrett bring down Adams County Christian School’s Brandon Sanders during the Tigers 35-12 win over the Rebels last Friday. Centreville will be going for the District 5-AA championship when they take on Central Private Friday night.

Centreville takes on Central Private for district title

By Michael Kerekes (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Thursday, October 29, 2009

CENTREVILLE — Centreville Academy has one team standing in the way of hosting a game in the first round of the playoffs.

Central Private School travels to Centreville Friday, and Tigers’ assistant coach Brian Stutzman said his team knows what’s at stake.

“Not only is it our final regular-season home game, but it’s for playoff seeding,” Stutzman said. “If we win Friday night, we get to be the No. 1 seed in our district and host (our opponent) in the first round of the playoffs.

“If we lose, we’ll be the No. 2 seed, and we would have to travel throughout the playoffs.”

Friday also marks Senior Night for Centreville, and Stutzman said it would be an emotional game for his seniors.

“They’re down to the end, where this could be their last home game, so it’s a ‘you never know’ situation,” Stutzman said. “We’ll have one more game, but we don’t know if (this group of seniors will) walk back out onto the field at Centreville.”

Central Private’s most notorious threat on offense is running back Bobby Muse, and containing him has proven to be a difficult task for teams this season. To date, he has rushed 69 times for 837 yards, good for a 12.13 average in yards per carry.

“He’s a big challenge,” Stutzman said. “We just have to lock him up, hold on and gang tackle, because of how strong he is. They throw the ball a little bit, but when you have a back like Muse, everything rotates around him.”

With home field advantage in the playoffs, as well as Senior Night, someone might think those are more than enough reasons to be up for the game Friday. However, Stutzman said neither of those things are the primary factor in the motivation of his players.

“Last year, we went down to Central Private, and rain postponed our game. We played on Saturday instead, and lost 13-12.

“That loss cost us the district championship. Obviously, we overcame that (en route to a state championship), but all we have to mention to these kids is ’13-12.’ They have revenge on their minds.”

Kickoff at Centreville (7-3, 3-0) is set for 7 p.m. Friday.