When Liberty High’s football team travels to Robert E. Lee for tonight’s Division 3, Region III semifinal, the Minutemen could have a hard time tracking down quarterback Dae’Quan Scott, the Southern Valley District offensive player of the year.
“He’s one of the faster backs we’ve seen in a long time,” Liberty coach Chris Watts said, noting he is the primary runner in the Fighting Leemen’s spread formation. “He’s rushed for an enormous amount of yards. He’s a very good quarterback-slash-running back.”
An extremely elusive player with the ball in his hands, Scott has run 139 times for 1,970 yards and scored 34 touchdowns this season, a few on kickoff returns.
Scott returned the opening kickoff 78 yards for a TD in Lee’s 26-6 regular-season-ending triumph over Rockbridge that clinched the Southern Valley District title. He separated his shoulder in that game, but has healed in the three off weeks since and should be back on attack tonight.
“They have a tremendous amount of speed we have to account for,” Watts said. “We’ve played some teams with speed (but) we’ve got to do a better job of tackling than we’ve done. The speed they have is incredible, but we’ve got good speed also. We’ll have guys in the right positions, we’ve just got to make the plays.”
Scott, who also has completed 30 of 74 passes for 484 yards and seven TDs, is complemented in the backfield by Terrell Mickens (34 carries, 406 yards, 12 TDs) and Mark Anderson (74-553).
The Minutemen will rely on a balanced running attack sparked by Thomas Clark and Lavarta Tanner. Tanner has recovered from a two arm injuries this fall and rushed for a season-high 83 yards and a touchdown in last week’s 21-14 win over Lord Botetourt.
“Lavarta’s … a senior and this is the playoffs,” Watts said. “There’s no tomorrow if you don’t win the football game so he’s got to give whatever he has. I don’t know if he’s 100 percent yet, but everybody’s got to play at 100 percent if we want to keep on going.”
Watts has platooned quarterbacks Tyler Bowyer and Anthony Reynolds this season, with Bowyer running the team’s traditional double dive formation and Reynolds, who caught five passes for 70 yards last week, operating primarily out of the spread.
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