Published: November 02, 2009 09:51 am      

Demons ready to bear down on El Reno

win over Western Heights sets up district-title showdown

Duncan was a team that looked distracted Friday night. Taking on a Western Heights team that has collected one win this season, the Demons more or less went through the motions in picking up a 40-14 win.

That shouldn’t be a problem this week.

If Duncan was looking past Western Heights to get to El Reno, it can hardly be blamed. The district championship will be on the line Friday night when the Demons hit the road to take on the No. 2-ranked Indians for District 5A-1 supremacy.

To knock off El Reno, Duncan will need a much better effort that it had in Week 9. The contest was never in doubt as the Demons led from start to finish. They just failed to put Western Heights away.

“U-G-L-Y,” Duncan offensive coordinator Todd Hudson said. “We were just sloppy. You can’t have penalties like that and expect to win against the teams we will see.

“Our execution wasn’t as sharp as it had been lately. We will take it and go on down the road.”

The Demons were able to run at will but hurt themselves with penalties and a turnover inside their own 50 after Western Heights had pulled within 21-7 late in the first half.

Special teams also had problems with two missed extra points, a turnover on a punt return and a long kickoff return.

Defensively, the short passing game of Western Heights gave Duncan fits. Jet quarterback Troy Davis got rid of the ball quickly and the secondary had trouble locking down on receivers. Once the Jets established the passing game, their running game came to life as the Demons had a poor night tackling.

Part of the problem had its roots early in the week according to defensive coordinator Kim Longest.

“It was the old adage,” Longest said. “You play like you practice. When we wanted to, we turned it on but we didn’t sustain it. We weren’t ready to play and it started Monday. We didn’t have anybody practice good all week. Hopefully, we got it out of our system.”

The good news for the Demons is that they didn’t play well and picked up a 42-14 win to improve to 8-1 on the season.

Some teams should be so lucky.

Lucky is not a word that can describe an El Reno team that entered the season with high expectations after a semifinal appearance last season.

The Indians are coming off a 59-15 win over Northwest Classen and have one of the best defenses in Class 5A. They also have one of the best playmakers in quarterback Jakeil Everheart, who accounted for five touchdown in Week 9, including one on a punt return.