Parrish keeps low profile, levies big hits for Lancers

AMHERST — Staying low to the ground with a nose for the football, Amherst senior middle linebacker A.J. Parrish pursues opposing ball carriers with the energy and intensity of a heat-seeking missile.

That’s what makes him one of the best players at his position in the area, if not the state.

“A.J.’s (got good) instinct and he’s very physical,” Lancers first-year coach Cecil Phillips said of Parrish, a 5-foot-9, 215-pound senior. “He’s obviously built a little bit lower to the ground and he’s compact so when he hits you in stride full-speed, that’s 215 pounds of solid muscle that’s getting there real fast. He brings a load when he’s coming downhill.”

After experiencing a breakout year as a junior, when he helped lead the Lancers to their second straight Group AA, Division 4, state championship, Parrish is averaging 10 tackles and assists per game with a team-leading 51 through five games.

“Big-time players make big plays in big games,” Phillips said. “That’s what we look for from the middle linebacker. He has made several tackles for loss and has three sacks. Very rarely is somebody going to break a tackle on him and break free.”

As effective as Parrish is at plugging up an opponent’s running game, he uses the same mentality on offense as a fullback, hitting holes or plowing into piles with reckless abandon, especially in critical short-yardage situations.

“When the offense line does their job and makes holes, it’s nice for me to just go through the holes and do what I’ve got to do,” said Parrish, who rushed for two touchdowns and caught a 27-yard pass out of the backfield from quarterback Kirby Anderson in last week’s 41-7 victory over Freedom, played in the rain in Woodbridge.

“He’s a load as a short-yardage back,” Phillips added. “We’ve got some different personnel packages where we’ll use his strength as a blocker as well as a ball carrier. He gets those shoulders squared and he’s got tremendous power in his legs and his hips and he’s tough to stop.”

And when the momentum gets rolling in their favor, it’s very difficult to stop the Lancers, who have won their past four non-district games, three against Group AAA opponents, after opening their season with a 24-21 Seminole District loss to Brookville.

“The kids are starting to really grasp the concept of the system,” said Phillips, who replaced Amherst’s triple-option offense with a Wing-T while maintaining the Lancers’ 3-5-3 defense. “Since they understand it more, they’ve gained more confidence and since they have more confidence, they’re playing a whole lot faster, so they’re really starting to click and everything’s starting to gel. We’ve just got to keep making sure we stay focused and we keep improving each week.”

Parrish’s responsibility as the quarterback of the defense is to call the plays and keep everyone alerted to what the offense is doing.

“To be a middle linebacker you have to have voice and lead your team on defense,” he said. “My job is to make sure everyone’s doing their jobs, doing what they’re told to do, going through their gaps, going back for pass coverage and stuff like that. When the defense is doing their job, then I can do my job (and) then we’ll shut offenses down. I make big plays and big hits and things like that, but the whole team does pretty much the same thing.”

Amherst’s defense, which boasts a volatile blend of speed and strength, hasn’t lost a step from previous seasons and is playing with both passion and purpose.

“We’re stronger, faster (than last year),” Parrish said. “Our mindset’s on winning a state championship.”

Parrish said the Lancers’ aggressive, disruptive, high-octane, hard-hitting defense can be intimidating at times.

“When we play hard like we do on every Friday, I think that teams do get scared after we put it on them,” he said. “After like the first three hits or something, then they start backing off away.”

Amherst thrives out of its active, quick-response schemes which require players with both speed and intelligence.

“On the defensive side of the ball, we’re looking for runners and hitters,” Phillips said, adding Parrish is the prototype for the rest of the Lancers. “The kids’ve got to be able to run and they’ve got to be able to play physical. You’ve got to have absolutely no fear and you’ve got to be able to sacrifice your body and those are the type of kids we want over there.”

Phillips said the 3-5-3 defense is so hard for teams to draw up plays against because the Lancers send players from so many angles.

“It’s the nature of the beast, or the nature of the defense,” he said. “We’re going to come from a lot of different areas at a lot of different times. Nobody can focus in on one or two blitzes because we’re going to be coming from a lot of different places throughout the entire night, so you really can’t set up a certain protection.”

He likes having Parrish directing the flow of traffic.

“A.J., we’re comfortable with him back there,” he said. “We’ll leave him back sometimes just to be the read guy and let him flow to the football, and sometimes, he’s a real good person to get rolling prior to the snap and he creates a lot of penetration in the backfield and creates a lot of problems.”