Beras hope to outscore Mangham

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, September 30, 2008

JONESVILLE — The Block Bears got the offense going last Friday, scoring 41 second-half points in a 48-43 win over Buckeye.

Now, the Bears will need to get the defense to follow suit if they want to grab a win over Mangham Friday night.

Block coach Benny Vault said getting some players back from injury should help his defense.

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“Defensively, we started out pretty good, but we had some injuries in the Jena game,” Vault said. “It carried over to the Buckeye game. This week we get those kids back, and hopefully we can go out and get the swagger back a little bit. We’ll be able to play defense this week and hopefully the offense will keep clicking.”

Mangham comes into Friday’s game after having blown out Vidalia 46-0 last week.

The Dragons led 40-0 at halftime before easing up in the second half.

They have a 3-1 record on the season, with their only loss being a 51-29 defeat to Ouachita Christian in the opening game of the season.

Vault said the Dragons have a very potent offense, which complements their speed.

“They run that spread offense that Auburn runs,” Vault said. “They really get after it with their speed. They’ve got some good athletes. We’re going to be preparing to stop the spread.”

Vault said Block’s homecoming victory over Buckeye really gave a lot of confidence to his team, which now has a 2-1 record.

“The kids are feeling good about themselves,” Vault said. “We gained some confidence, so it was a big win in that regard.”

In that game, the Bears came back from a large deficit to win, scoring 35 points in the third quarter.

A shotgun spread offense was the key to the scoring outburst, and Vault said having enough players where no one has to play both offense and defense allows the coaching staff to work on more offensive details in practice.

“We’re allowed to put time in practice where we run three different sets and run them well,” Vault said. “Usually when we play schools, they have people playing both ways and we don’t. We feel pretty good about that.”