Published: October 22, 2008 09:39 pm      

Eagles face tough road test at No. 3 Davenport

The Oklahoma Christian Academy football team has faced several tough district foes this season, and things will not get any easier Friday night when they hit the road to take on No. 3-ranked Davenport.

“Davenport is just a fast, strong, fundamentally strong team,” OCA coach Keith Lough said. “They’ve all played football for a long time and hopefully we’ll give them a little competition.”

The Bulldogs (6-1, 4-1) have been one of the toughest Class B teams this season, and spent much of the year atop the rankings, before falling to Weleekta two weeks ago.

While the Eagles are coming off a 60-12 loss to Sasakwa last week, Lough believes his team is steadily improving.

“The overall picture we made some improvements, some kids that had not played well really stepped up,” Lough said. “Parker (Randell) ran well, read the holes and made some good cuts. Overall we did some things better, but it’s hard to put the whole package together, we’re still working on it.”

Offensively, Davenport likes move the ball with its power running game. This season the Bulldogs are averaging 295.86 rushing yards per game. Tyler Phillips has done most of the damage, running for 787 yards and five touchdowns this year.

Davenport has also gotten great production out of their quarterbacks Kiel Harris and Jeff Terronez, who have combined to rush for more than 600 yards and nine touchdowns.

“They run a lot of power stuff, they like to pull the backside end and run a power sweep and they’ll try and do a little deception,” Lough said. “They’re just solid offensively.”

Davenport’s defense has been just as tough. Aside from the 36 points they surrendered to Weleetka, they have kept the lid on their opponents. Lough said he expects them to try and take away the running game with their strong defensive line.

“We’re going to try and run shotgun and spread them out,” Lough said. “They’re just really quick on the line, and they’re just hard to block out of that.”

The game is set to kick off at 7:30 p.m.