SLIPPERY ROCK — The Rockets know a thing or two about spreading the ball around on offense.

But the General McLane football team — Slippery Rock High’s opponent in the District 10 Class AAA semifinals at Slippery Rock University Friday night — takes that strategy to an extreme.

Kickoff is 7 p.m. By 7:30, a whole lot of Slippery Rock and General McLane players will have probably carried the football.

“They have so many guys who touch the ball because they have really good athletes all over the field,” said Slippery Rock coach Brendan Hathaway.

How generous are the Lancers when it comes to doling out carries? Fourteen players have had at least two rushing attempts for General McLane. Nine have at least 100 yards on the ground. And 10 have scored at least one touchdown.

“It’s by design,” said General McLane coach Jim Wells. “We have a lot of capable backs and we like to spread the ball around. In the option, you don’t know who is going to get the ball on any given play and we like to rotate our backs a lot.”

Senior Aidan Graham is the leader of the rather large group with 826 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Like Slippery Rock, the Lancers run an option attack — with a few modifications.

“They do double-teams differently and their line splits are a lot tighter than ours,” Hathaway said. “It’s not completely foreign, but a lot is different.”

One similarity is neither team puts the ball in the air very often.

General McLane (8-2) has attempted just 52 passes all season. The Lancers even spread that around with five players with at least one pass attempt.

In fact, Graham leads the team with 207 yards passing despite only four completions — three for touchdowns.

“Aiden is very, very versatile,” Wells said. “He runs the ball well inside and outside. He can throw the ball. He’s a good blocker. We use him in a lot of different ways.”

Quinn Thompson leads the Lancers with 32 pass attempts this season. He will also line up at tight end from time to time.

Slippery Rock (9-1) is also selective when it comes to putting the ball in the air with only 53 pass attempts this season.

Ryan Currie, a senior, has completed 20-of-50 passes for 454 yards. He’s also the Rockets’ leading rusher with 708 yards and 16 touchdowns.

Junior Frank Conlon has strung together three strong weeks as the primary running back and is averaging nearly 10 yards per carry.

Slippery Rock had some extra time to prepare for its first playoff game thanks to a first-round bye.

The Rockets used last week to rest, work on conditioning and the fundamentals while they waited to see who would emerge from the General McLane-Oil City game.

Hathaway, though, is reserving judgement on whether or not the bye was a good thing.

“We’ll see Friday night,” he said. “It allowed us to rest a little bit, but McLane got to play a game. In high school football, I’m not sure the bye helps you as much.”

Hathaway did get a chance to see the General McLane-Oil City game in person.

That contest turned out to be a shootout with the Lancers outlasting the Oilers 56-35.

“Oil City runs a totally different offense than we do,” Hathaway said. “I think Oil City played one of their best games of the year on offense. They were getting better and better each week.

“McLane can shut people down,” Hathaway added. “They have athletes on that side of the field, too.”

The Lancers, though, have had some problems on defense at times this season, giving up 27 points per game. They gave up 95 points, though, between losses to Quad-A McDowell and undefeated and No. 1 seed Cathedral Prep.

“I think you’re always concerned about defense,” Wells said. “What this game is going to come down to is which team can do a better job containing the other.”