A run-first offense staring the Ryan defense in the face has become a pattern in the 2009 playoffs. And it's one that El Paso Chapin isn't planning on breaking on Saturday when the Raiders and the Huskies meet for their Class 4A Division I Region I semifinal matchup at Midland's Grande Communications Stadium.

The Huskies have a 1,700-yard rusher in senior Cori Sanchez, but Chapin won't load up the backfield like the Raiders' first two playoff opponents did. The Raiders got stuck for 226 rushing yards on nearly 70 rushing plays by first-round opponent Saginaw in a 48-7 win before holding Fort Worth Arlington Heights to 137 rushing yards on 37 carries in last week's 38-13 area-round win.

Chapin will run the ball primarily out of its spread offense with Sanchez as the only one in the backfield.

“They’re not your traditional run offense. But we’re prepared,” said Ryan head coach Joey Florence. “We’ve seen a little bit of everything this year, and that’s what happens when you get to this point in the season. You hope to get to a point where you’ve seen it all before and you’re ready for anything.”

But Florence also acknowledged that Sanchez is a runner unlike any the Raiders have seen this season.

“No one’s been able to tackle him,” Florence said. “Obviously that’s something we’re concerned about. He’s very fast -- very elusive.”

Ryan’s run-stoppers have quietly been one of the most consistent units on the team this year. Against six run-first opponents this year, the Raiders have given up just over 125 rushing yards per game, and Ryan has surrendered just five rushing touchdowns all year.

And with injuries to early-season starters Jordan Richmond and Jerrick Harvey, Ryan has shown a lot of depth at linebacker.

“Guys like Jonny Paramore and Daniel Martin have given us a big lift,” Florence said. “And when you have Alex [De La Torre], who’s every bit as good as we knew he could be, and Colby Boliver, who’s so valuable as a leader for us, it’s a unit behind a really good defensive line that we feel really comfortable having out there.

“The guys who are left inside the box have got to do their job. They’ve got to make the play when they get an opportunity. Hopefully our front six can handle them. But if we need to, we can bring our outside backers in there or roll a safety down there. There’s all kinds of ways to get more guys down there. It’s a little bit of a chess match.”

As Ryan tries to contend with Sanchez and the Huskies’ running game, Chapin’s defense may have the biggest task of the night: containing the most precise spread offense headed by the most elite quarterback the team from El Paso has seen all year.

For the Huskies to break through and become the first ever El Paso ISD team to make it into the fourth round of a UIL-sanctioned football playoff bracket, they’ll have to adjust quickly to a more complicated offense than they may be used to.

They’ll do it with a multiple odd front, switching up their blitz looks to try to confuse Scotty Young and the Ryan offensive line. And that line, which came into the regular season as somewhat of a question mark, has come into its own since the Raiders’ 50-29 win over Guyer in the regular-season finale.

“They work hard,” Young said of his bodyguards. “We see a lot of different fronts as teams try to change things up on us. They study a lot of film, and they’ve been doing a really good job in protection lately.”

But where the game is played may be a bigger factor than either coach wants it to be. As his team practiced on Thanksgiving Day, Florence repeatedly said that the team that better handled all the distractions of a holiday weekend, a short week of school, and traveling would have a distinct advantage on the field.

“We weren’t ready for the trip [to Lubbock] last year,” Florence said of Ryan’s season-ending loss to Wolfforth Frenship. “We’ll do better this year.”

MATT MARTINEZ can be reached at 940-566-6873. His e-mail address is mmartinez@dentonrc.com.