Several Baltimore-area teams pulled off upsets in the regional football semifinals Friday, but none was bigger than Mervo's 30-20 victory over Sherwood — the first playoff win in the history of the Mustangs program.
Mervo had slipped into the fourth-seeded spot in Class 4A North by two one-hundredths of a point. Sherwood was undefeated and seeded No. 1 with a big-play offense that had outscored opponents by 30 points per game.
Still, the Mustangs had momentum going into the game. They won their last seven regular-season games and took the Baltimore City Division I title for the third straight year. They turned their season around after falling to Edmondson, 14-13, in Week Three.
"I'm just really so proud of the kids," said Mervo coach Patrick Nixon. "We really thought we could win the game. Something changed when we lost to Edmondson. It's a young group and the majority of this group showed through. I'm so proud of how they responded to the coaching and we're a totally different team.
"Going into this game no one expected us to win to be honest and so we're just proud that the kids did the job that we asked them to do and I'm happy that they got the reward at the end."
The Warriors had been ranked No. 7 in The Washington Post, but Nixon said his team dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.
They started off slowly with a series of penalties on the first drive that helped Sherwood score on a pass play, but Mervo quarterback Carlos Davis answered with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Terry Jones. Rykim Lemon made it 14-7 at the half with a 15-yard touchdown run.
The Mustangs never trailed after that with Armarni Addison scoring what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown on an 80-yard kickoff return to start the second half. The conversion gave Mervo a 22-7 lead.
The Warriors have scored 201 more points than Mervo this season, but a defensive effort led by linebacker Dwayne Mclaurin held them to their lowest output of the season.
The Mustangs (9-2) advance to meet Howard (10-1) in a rematch of last season's regional semifinal won 20-0 by the Lions. Kickoff is Friday at 7 p.m. at Howard.
Stingy and proud of it: Reginald Lewis' football team has allowed an average of just 2.2 points per game this season — a total of 24. They haven't given up more than 12 points in a game and Saturday's 24-0 win over FAET in the Class 1A South regional semifinal was their eighth shutout.
That has been one of the key components of the Falcons extending their record to 11-0 with the first playoff win in school history. They also won Baltimore City's Division II title.
The Falcons are rebuilding under new coach Elwood Townsend, who turned Douglass into a two-time state finalist, before moving to Lewis this fall. They led by just 6-0 at the half Saturday against the Grizzlies, a first-time state finalist last season, but quarterback Dariun Miller, who played in the state final while at Douglass, hit Antwain Partlow with a 50-yard touchdown pass midway through the third quarter to spark the Falcons to a regional final match with Edmondson on Friday at 6 p.m. at Poly.
Plowing the way: Howard's offensive line has also been a key to its success this fall, plowing the way for the Lions' running backs to average 7.5 yards per carry.
Andrew Chalfant, Dustin Robinson, Noah Osborne, Matt Burnstein, Alan Gourney, John Villella and Daniel Blades opened the holes for running back Devin Dawkins to average 18.1 yards per carry in the Lions' 41-14 win over Bel Air on Friday night in the Class 4A North regional semifinals.
For the season, Dawkins averages almost a first down per carry for the Howard County champions. He has run for 1,771 yards on 194 carries for an average of 9.1 yards. DJ Howard averages 8.1 yards and Robert Agbal, 7.6. They're the only three Lions to run more than 25 times.
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