Northeast Mississippi Community College freshman football player Tez Lane has worked his way past adversity throughout his football career.
Lane has been asked to make numerous sacrifices on the field, the biggest of which was a position change his senior year in high school. Lane was asked to learn the quarterback position and to lead a tradition-rich West Point High School program.
This season, Lane is learning the junior college game. Northeast (3-4, 3-1 Mississippi Association of Junior and Community Colleges North Division) also is battling adversity, including injuries and inconsistent play, but it can erase some of that frustration at 7 p.m. Thursday with a victory against Itawamba C.C. (5-2, 3-1 MACJC North Division) at Eaton Field in Fulton. The winner will earn one of the two playoff spots from the division.
“We have been down before and we have always come back,” Lane said. “This is the biggest game of the season, so we have to play our best. I think everybody is excited about playing and having a chance to make the playoffs.”
Northeast suffered its first division loss Thursday in a 59-0 setback to No. 3 East Mississippi C.C. The Tigers were held to 21 yards.
“(EMCC has) a really good team,” Lane said. “We didn’t have any answers and couldn’t get anything going. Even though it was a tough loss, we can’t let that get us down with two games to go. We have to find a way to finish the season strong.”
Northeast has been looking for consistency. It has lost to three top-10 foes from the South Division — No. 2 Jones Junior College (34-28), No. 7 Copiah-Lincoln C.C. (29-20), and No. 8 Mississippi Gulf Coast C.C. (28-14).
Prior to the game against EMCC, Northeast had won its first three division games by 26 points.
“The defense has been really good this season,” Lane said. “We have struggled sometimes on offense. We have had to move some players around, and some of the linemen are freshmen. When we put a drive together, we have turnovers and penalties.”
Dequinten Spraggins, another former quarterback at West Point High, is leading the charge on defense. Now a sophomore defensive back, Spraggins has 36 tackles and five deflections. Against EMCC, Spraggins had 10 stops and two pass breakups.
“We couldn’t control (EMCC quarterback Dontreal Pruitt),” Spraggins said. “He had so much time to throw the ball we couldn’t cover it sometimes in our secondary. That’s what happens when you get a quarterback that can scramble and throw it at the same time. The best thing we can do now is forget about that game and move on and get ready for the next one. We got two games left and we need to win them both.”
Northeast is third in the state in rushing. Lane and fellow freshmen Corbin White, of Nettleton, and Mitchell Cunningham, of North Pontotoc, have gotten the majority of the snaps. Youth abounds on offense, as Jeremy Liggins, Jerrard Randall, and Brady Allen saw time at quarterback against EMCC. Liggins and Allen are freshmen.
Lane has run for 145 yards. He also has played a key role in the kick return a game, a spot he held down in high school.
“We just have to find a way to become more balanced,” Lane said. “That is what has really hurt us. In high school, you can be a really good running team and other teams can’t stop that. Same thing if you are a really good passing team.
“Every team has speed, so they know what you are going to do really well. It is on us as an offense at being better at doing more things.”
Lane is used to being on a team well on its way to the playoffs by now. Last season, Lane led West Point to 11 wins and a Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A North State runner-up finish. Northeast is looking for its second playoff berth in three seasons. The Tigers snapped a six-year drought in 2011.
“It has taken a while to adjust to the game on this level because it is so good,” Lane said. “We have a lot of freshman, and I know a lot of them felt the same way. Once you get out there and start getting banged around a little bit, it gets easier.
“Even though we lost our last game, we have a lot of confidence. We know a lot of their guys and they know a lot of our guys. That is what makes this fun. Hopefully, we can compete and show what this team is capable of doing.”
Follow Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott.
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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