Waterford hosts Killingly in Class M football semifinal tonight
Pass-oriented Lancers host the ground-and-pound Red Hawks
Waterford wants to spread out defenses and create space.
Killingly wants to run over a defender's face.
Waterford wants to play at lightspeed and gas its opponent.
Killingly still wants to run over a defender's face.
“It's pretty close to polar opposites,” Waterford head coach John Strecker said.
The second-seeded Lancers host third-seeded Killingly in an all-Eastern Connecticut Conference CIAC Class M semifinal on Monday night and clash of offensive philosophies (6:30, theday.com).
Both teams are 10-1 but didn't play during the regular season.
Strecker installed spread concepts when he took over Waterford five seasons ago and soon recognized a growing difference between his players and others.
“I started noticing a few years ago that we'd end up on the field a lot of times against teams bigger than us,” Strecker said. “So our philosophy is to attack anywhere on the field.
“We like to go as fast as we can now. We've tried to do that in the past, but if you're not executing and you go fast, then you're not good at it, and you shouldn't be going fast. But from the very beginning since I took over, we have been in this spread offense trying to push the tempo.”
To Strecker's point, the Lancers couldn't go full-throttle when they were 0-10 two years ago and 3-7 last year.
Waterford orchestrated one of the state's best transformations his season. It won six more games during the regular season, the biggest turnaround amongst all 32 CIAC playoff teams.
It has helped that the Lancers have an experienced quarterback in senior Ryan Bakken. He has thrown for 1,872 yards with 32 touchdowns and seven interceptions.
“He makes a lot of reads for us after the snap,” Strecker said. “He's more consistent with that this year and he's made few passes that I would say were ill-advised.
“He's one of our captains and has been a great leader.”
Waterford isn't looking to throw on every down, either. Ideally, they've had a 50-50 run-pass split, Strecker said, but will take what the defense gives it.
The Lancers ran 49 times for 189 yards and a touchdown in last Wednesday's 10-6 quarterfinal win over No. 7 Granby/Canton, the program's first postseason win.
The Lancers may have averaged a mere 3.9 yards a carry but doing that three times in a row gets a team a first down. It also allowed them to have an absurd 69-32 edge in offensive plays.
Waterford averaged 34.2 points, second-best in the ECC.
“(Bakken is) excellent,” Killingly head coach Chad Neal said. “He can make plays. He's got a great arm. He's got a great stable of receivers that are very capable. Their running back, Jackson Harshberger, he also plays linebacker, I'll take him any day. He's all over the field.
“Their offense gives you a lot to look at. They stretch you sideline-to-sideline. You
have to play the whole field against them.”
The Red Hawks, on the other hand, go right at a defense. They do so by playing a brand of football that's long since fallen out of popularity — the quarterback (Jacob Nurse) is lined up under center, a fullback and tailback (and sometimes a third back) lined up behind him in the I-formation, and multiple tight ends are added up front to add extra mass and brute force.
Killingly has run 461 times this season, more than any other team in the state that has inputted their statistics into MaxPreps.com's database. Nurse has attempted just 90 passes.
The Red Hawks averaged a league-high 35 points.
“I think it's to our advantage,” senior fullback-linebacker John Creswell said. “It's unique now to see this I-set. Teams aren't ready for that running-downhill-at-you attitude that we have. They're not ready for the physicality. They don't play many other teams that are going to run up the middle every single play.
“I play fullback. I'm just a moving guard out of the backfield, really. I'm taking on blocks and kicking out ends. It's something we take pride in, blocking. It's how we succeed. Teams, I think, are taken off-guard by it and allows us to have long drives. We had a nine-minute drive against NFA. That's huge. It really wears down defenses.” n.griffen@theday.com