The Chandler Lions got their mojo back Friday night, whacking shorthanded Star-Spencer 48-0 to set up a potential threeway tie for second place in District 2A-2.
With a win Thursday night at Luther, the Lions would be 5-2 in district play, as would Luther and Crossings Christian, assuming the Knights beat Kellyville.
Luther beat Crossings, Crossings beat Chandler and Chandler would have a win over Luther, so tiebreaker points from district games would be used to determine district rankings.
At stake would be a home game for the first round of the playoffs.
There are a lot of possible combinations, but the simplest one is if Chandler beats Luther by 13 or more points. That would give them 48 tie-breaker points and Luther would have 47 and Crossings would have 45 or fewer, depending on the outcome of the Kellyville game.
That scenario would have Chandler in second place in the district, Luther in third and Crossings fourth.
The Lions returned to their winnings way Friday after back-to-back district losses to Crossings and Jones.
“The thing I liked about our guys tonight is that we’re starting to see things we had coached about the last couple of weeks,” Chandler coach Jack Gray said after the game. “We hadn’t seen that the last couple of weeks. They’re taking the coaching and we’re seeing improvement, looking more like a family.
“I told them ‘I hear you guys talking to each other now’ and it’s not the isolation we’ve had at times We’re working better as a team.”
The Lions rolled up 427 yards of total offense against Star-Spencer. Casmen Hill ran for 181 to lead the way and quarterback Alec Jackson had 128 passing and 44 running.
“We started off a little slow and didn’t have the ball in our hands for very long,” Gray said. “They stayed alive on offense against us and that slowed us down.”
Gray said the Lions will prepare for Luther the same way they have the past few weeks.
“We’ve simplified a lot,” he said. “We’re going to let the guys play and react. That’s going to be our thing.”