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Bennett’s Creek’s junior midget Pop Warner football team won the district championship with a 7-1 record and travels to face the North Raleigh Bulldogs on Saturday in the Mid-South Region playoffs. This is the second straight season BC’s junior midget team has reached the playoffs.

BC Warriors head into Pop Warner playoffs

By Andrew Giermak (Contact) | Suffolk News-Herald

Published Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Bennett’s Creek’s junior midget football team is all about being physical, on both sides of the ball.

“There’ve been some practices where we don’t practice with a football the whole time. We spend the whole practice hitting, running and conditioning,” said BC middle linebacker John Pope.

That attitude has earned the Warriors a 7-1 record, the district championship and a spot in the regional playoffs which start on Saturday in Raleigh, N.C.

Defensively, the Warriors have pitched five shutouts this season. In their seven games against teams in their own division (Southeastern Virginia Pop Warner Association, Division II), the Warriors allowed only 12 points.

The physical play works on the offensive side, too.

“For me, offensively, the really big thing is in the past, we haven’t had an O-line that blocks anything like this,” said quarterback Ryan Hathaway.

“Through the season, we’ve rotated six or seven guys at running back looking for the right tandem, but the line is just very consistent and they’ve been the big key,” said BC head coach Mike Bowles.

Whether it’s been because of the tough practices, or if it is just the talented players he had to work with, Bowles is able to do something not many Pop Warner coaches can. The Warriors don’t have any starters go both ways. The Warriors have 11 players start on offense and 11 different guys as starters on defense.

“We don’t have any back-ups,” said Ka’Shon Saunders, who along with Pope makes up the middle linebackers in BC’s aggressive and unusual 5-4-2 defense.

“Because everyone plays, everyone works harder in practice each week,” said Saunders.

“We’re aggressive, everyone’s aggressive out there. We want to have 11 hats on the ball on every play,” said Pope.

On offense, the Warriors run the majority of the time, but are dangerous putting the ball in the air, too said Bowles.

Hathaway’s been a quarterback for Bennett’s Creek teams for eight years.

“He’s smart, he sees things and then comes and tells us and we’re able to make changes. When we go with what Ryan says, it usually works,” said Bowles.

“With our pass protection, I don’t think we’ve been sacked all year,” said Bowles. Center Adrian Drew is the captain of the offensive line that draws so much praise from Bowles and Hathaway.

The Warriors have some experience at the postseason level. Some players from the Nansemond Suffolk Pop Warner Association came over the BC team after there were not enough players for a Nansemond Suffolk junior midget team. That includes some players from a Saints’ team that made the regional playoffs in 2008. Last year’s BC junior midget team reached the playoffs, so there are some returning vets from that squad, too.

On Saturday, the Warriors will be tested by the North Raleigh Bulldogs, who also went through the regular season with a 7-1 record. The ultimate goal is the national championship game in Orlando.

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