It pays to listen to your coach

The Matoaca High School football team slid into its bye week 0-3. No panic or season-is-over commiseration ensued.

Warriors coach Pat Manuel already had prepared his squad for the possibility of a rough start while facing C.D. Hylton, L.C. Bird and Manchester. Unimportant, he kept telling them, because they were nondistrict games.

The season really started with district play in Game 4, Manuel preached, for a simple reason: If you're a Division 6 team in the Central Region, as is Matoaca, you pretty much have to win your district to get in the playoffs.

"We just kept telling them we hadn't played an important game yet," Manuel said. "The nondistrict games mean nothing. It's about winning the right seven games. You can be 9-1, but if you lose the wrong one, you're sitting at home."

The Warriors have been right so far. Matoaca (4-0, 4-3) has kept itself in playoff position by reeling off four consecutive Central District wins, leaving it in a tie with top-ranked Meadowbrook (4-0, 7-0) and sixth-ranked Thomas Dale (4-0, 5-2).

Untanglement begins tonight against visiting Meadowbrook. Games against Dinwiddie and Dale follow.

The region is divided by enrollment into two divisions: 6 for the schools with larger enrollments, 5 for the schools with smaller enrollments. Four teams make the playoffs in each division.

Playoff berths automatically go to the region's four district winners. As is almost always the case in the Central Region, the district winners this season will be Division 6 teams, meaning there are no at-large spots.

That's why Manuel figured the first three games really had no bearing on the Warriors' playoff chances. He'd rather be 7-0 in the district and 7-3 overall than 6-1, 9-1.

"We had such a brutal schedule," he said. "We kept telling them, 'You can't get all bent out of shape if we start bad.' I've been pretty proud of the maturity they've shown in understanding their situation."

Meadowbrook, which beat Matoaca 20-18 last year and 34-28 in 2007, lost in the region championship game the past two seasons.

"The one nice thing about our schedule is we're in position to play meaningful games at the end of the season," Manuel said. "We have an opportunity to see if we can take advantage of it.

"[Meadowbrook quarterback Andre] Coble and [running back Mico] Phillips are two of the most exciting players in the Richmond area, if not the state. We've certainly got our hands full. But historically, we've played them really well when they had some really great teams."

Contact Tim Pearrell at (804) 649-6965