When Elizabeth City State was 0-2 in September, coach Waverly Tillar admitted, he was a little worried.
"I was like, what's going on here?" Tillar said.
But his Vikings (8-2) responded with eight consecutive victories and reached the CIAA title game, where they'll play Winston-Salem State on Saturday with a chance to avenge a 22-17 loss Sept. 3. Elizabeth City's other loss was at top-ranked Delta State, 28-21 in overtime.
"Here we are," Tillar said.
Several Vikings players said they were hoping for a chance to play the Rams again, and they got it by winning the CIAA's Northern Division title.
"Basically, we were disappointed in ourselves early in the season," said Daronte McNeill, a junior running back who has 1,435 yards and 20 touchdowns this season and Elizabeth City's career record of 3,332 yards. "We had to sit down and look at ourselves and just figure out what we were missing and what we needed to get over the hump."
The Vikings turned to McNeill and a potent ground game. Their biggest test came at Virginia Union, where they won 43-41 in triple overtime. They capped the regular season by defeating Lincoln (Pa.) 39-14 behind 186 yards and two touchdowns from McNeill.
Starting quarterback Creven Powell was banged up and didn't play against Lincoln, but Tillar said that Powell will start Saturday.
Against WSSU in September, Powell missed open receivers, and McNeill ran for just 90 yards on 23 carries but did score twice.
"He's been doing all the things we've asked of him," Tillar said of Powell, who is 74 for 135 passing with 941 yards, five touchdown passes and six interceptions.
Tillar, a 31-year veteran who is in his ninth season at Elizabeth City, said he's been proud of how has team bounced back from its early losses.
"They stuck to it, and they got determined and just came together," he said.
Saturday's title game will match the CIAA's best two running backs this season — McNeill and WSSU's Nic Cooper. Tillar says he wouldn't want to try to tackle either.
"No, I'm staying away from that," he said. "Daronte and Nic have different kind of styles of running, but they both know what they are doing. It's going to be a treat for the fans to get to watch both of them in the same game."
McNeill said that the winner will be the team that plays better, not the team with the running back who plays better.
"It's going to be about which team makes the least amount of mistakes," McNeill said. "And it's a championship game so there's a lot on the line."
Elizabeth City will be trying to win its second title. The first came in 1971, when it lost to WSSU in the regular season then came back to defeat WSSU 33-22 in the title game. WSSU has won eight CIAA titles, and last won the championship game in 2000.
Tillar, the veteran coach in the game, said he wasn't bothered by coach Connell Maynor's summer comments about WSSU going undefeated and winning the CIAA championship.
"When you are feeling it you just let it out," Tillar said. "Maybe if I was 30 years younger, I would be the same way, but us older folks say that's just somebody feeling it, so I'm fine with it."
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