The deeper a team gets into the postseason, the smaller the margin of error for success gets. Mistakes are magnified, and while Clayton forced its opponent into a bucketload of them, Cleveland made a few too many in the third round of the 7A East playoffs.
Clayton’s defense was once again the story in a 47-7 drubbing of Conley while Southeast Raleigh stormed back from a 10-point deficit to stun Cleveland, 49-37.
getting defensive
The Clayton defense has been on a absolute heater of late, and that carried over into the third-round demolition of Conley.
Akedran Crumel and TaShaun Walker returned two of the four interceptions for scores to bolster an offense that found the end zone on five of its six drives.
And, thanks to the game we’re about to mention, the Comets (10-2) get to host Southeast Raleigh in the East semifinal on Black Friday.
48 minutes
That’s the length of a regulation high school football game, and were it, say, 31, these next few paragraphs would read a little differently.
Cleveland led 31-21 with just under four minutes to go in the third quarter, but Southeast Raleigh scored the next 28 points — and forced two turnovers — over the next 10 minutes or so of game time to turn this contest on its head.
The Rams (10-2) got 327 passing yards and two scores from Owen Hulbert while Diondre Haynes recorded 10 tackles in the defeat.