East Clinton looks to halt a two-game losing streak Friday when Washington Senior visits Lees Creek for a South Central Ohio League contest.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. Friday.
The two schools have played some exciting contests in recent years.
Washington won a low-scoring contest 15-12 a year ago but it was 42-24 Blue Lions in 2013 and 46-43 Blue Lions in 2012.
“The Blue Lions are big up front and run a few big backs at you,” EC head coach Jeremy Yankey said. “We need to continue to try to play physical to stop them from running on us.”
Washington head coach Corey Dye sees plenty of physical play from the Astros.
“East Clinton is a tough, hard-nosed team,” Dye said. “One thing I’ve noticed about East Clinton, they get to the ball really well defensively.”
Yankey said the WSHS defense also puts a lot of hats on the ball and may well put a lot of players near the line of scrimmage.
That means the Astros will need to be able to run the ball effectively to keep the Blue Lions honest. They have struggled to do that since Anthony Osburn’s season ended with an injury in the first half of the Blanchester game.
“We did a much better job of maintaining possession of the football last week at Chillicothe then we did at Greeneview,” Yankey said. “We just have to improve on getting it into the end zone. Wesley Kidder is starting to show signs of becoming a more aggressive runner.”
In last week’s 50-7 loss to Chillicothe, East Clinton trailed 14-7 late in the first half. But the Cavaliers scored on a couple of “trick plays” to put the game out of reach at halftime, 28-7.
“Our guys showed they were not going to give up and played a good third quarter,” said Yankey.
