Sports Editor

Liberty’s home football opener last week wasn’t as satisfying as it could have been after Spruce Creek escaped with a 16-14 victory, but Chargers Coach David Benson remains convinced that all of the team’s preseason goals remain intact.

“This doesn’t change any of the goals we have set. It wasn’t a district game,” Benson told his team afterward. “We’ll take a lesson from this and move forward.”

The Chargers, 1-1, host Gateway, 1-1, Friday at 7:30 p.m. in a non-district game.

Last week’s contest was delayed 50 minutes at halftime by lightning. It was an emotional outlet for Spruce Creek after one of its players, Jordan Peterson, nearly died during practice last week and had to be resuscitated by the trainers.

“We knew that they would come in either real fired up, or real down, but that we had to be prepared for both,” Benson said.

The Hawks jumped to a 13-0 first half lead, taking advantage of a Wing-T formation that confused the Chargers defense.

But the Chargers’ J.J. Elisis got his team right back into it when he returned a kickoff 69 yards for a TD with 40 seconds left in the half.

Elisis sprinted 57 yards for Liberty’s second touchdown in the third quarter.

“He’s special,” Benson said. “He runs in the low 4.5s in the 40. He has real good football speed.”

The problem was that the Chargers couldn’t get the ball into Elisis’ hands often.

“We only ran something like 32 plays,” Benson said. “The problem we had, like the week before, was that our defense had a hard time getting off the field on third down.”

Benson said Spruce Creek’s Wing-T offense is difficult to defense.

“You just don’t see it that much. It was the same way when we played Deltona couple of years ago,” Benson said.

The positive, Benson said, was that his team fought through the problems and put itself in a position to win.

“Anyone who plays us knows our guys go 100 percent until the end of the game. I never have to question our team’s intensity. There were a lot of positives from this game,” he said.

Liberty junior offensive lineman Jamal Ray suffered a stinger (numbness in the extremities) in practice Tuesday and was taken to the hospital for observation. Benson said Ray was released Tuesday evening and suffered no permanent injury. Ray will miss Friday’s game.

Liberty beat Gateway last season, 37-21.

The Panthers lost, 55-10, at Harmony last week, after quarterback Roger Allen went out with an ankle injury. Gateway Coach Marlin Roberts said Allen should return Friday.

“When he went out, the rest of the ship sort of went down with him,” Roberts said.

Gateway scored on a 49-yard interception return by freshman Isiah Wharton and a 31-yard field goal by Felipe Oliviera.

Roberts’ winning plan?

“Stop 20 (Elisis) and 4 (receiver Randy Gil).”