[laker20]

Mercer has played a much tougher schedule and district than Russel, they handled some major adversity last week and wanted to rejuvenate Friday, Mercer Co, was one step ahead of Russel all night. Russel fans will tell you that their team didn't show up til second half, but Mercer just knocked them AROUND all night, only plays they got scores on were screens, and passes, run game got them nothing and they were sacked all night. late in fourth quarter on fourth in Mercer territory Russel could have scored to go ahead mercer d, shut em down!!!! Then with time left on the clock mercer running the ball to milk clock, titans RB Johnson got two big first downs, on fourth down!!!
Hats off to mercer, and them Russel fans who are a bit wild met their match with the Titan faithful.

While agree that that the Mercer players were much more hyped up to begin this game, I wouldn't say that they were ever a step ahead of the Lakers. They dominated the LOS and our coaching staff never made the proper adjustments. We tried going to a pass game, but rather than make the short passes tried to go down field knowing that our QB didn't have the time to wait for the long patterns, and has had trouble throwing the ball away all season. With the two called back TDs and the fumble on the 1-yard line, you could see our players' shoulders start to slump.

I disagree on the quality of the two districts. In all honesty, I don't see Mercer as being any better than Clay Co. They simply wanted it more last night and our guys didn't show up to play. There were maybe 4 or 5 of the Lakers who showed that they wanted this game. The real difference in this game was the Mercer coaching staff made the right calls and adjustments, and sold his players on what it was going to take to move on.......ours didn't. In the end Mercer got the win, and that's all that really matters.