BY MIKE LONDON
SALISBURY POST

And the Falcons certainly lived up to them on Friday night, getting in the best licks in a three-way scrimmage with Davie County and West Stokes.

“I’m very pleased that we played tough and physical and with a lot of confidence,” said Young. “Our level of toughness impressed me. I’m not saying we don’t have miles and miles to go, but we are way ahead of this time last year.”

The Falcons went 8-3 a year ago, losing only to a trio of 3A state playoff teams and sweeping the county, so you can draw your own conclusions from Young’s optimism.

As expected, rugged defense was the cornerstone of West’s impressive night.

“That’s what we build around and it was real good tonight,” said Young.

Young mentioned linebackers S.J. Culbertson and James Francis, defensive back Terris Sifford and linemen J.D. Watkins and Brant Marlin as players who had especially good evenings.

“But hats off to that whole unit,” said Young. “It was an overall good effort.”

The surprise was the Falcons’ offense, which had been slower to hit its stride in practices the past few weeks. But not last night. Maybe because it finally wasn’t working against the Falcon defense.

“(Quarterback) Jared Barnette was excellent, threw it very well and completed most everything,” said Young. “Jonathan Diggs got five or six yards per carry and freshman Joe Jackson broke a few long touchdown runs.”

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Salisbury head football coach Raymond Daugherty conservatively estimates that his team is 10,000 times ahead of where it was at this time last year.

The Hornets scrimmaged Mt. Airy at home Friday night and, while everything didn’t sail smoothly for Salisbury, Daugherty sounded pretty optimistic that his team will be competitive in 2000.

“There were positives and there were negatives just like there will be for everyone else in their first scrimmage,” said Daugherty. “But we were pleased overall. Our defense played very well and the backs ran hard.”

Daugherty said the Hornets struggled up front at times with the visitors, but generally held their own.

“And Mount Airy’s pretty good,” Daugherty said. “They made the playoffs last year and they feel like they’re better this year.”

As expected, Daugherty’s two inexperienced quarterbacks suffered some growing pains, but he was hardly shocked by that turn of events.

“At quarterback, we’ve got a sophomore (Jerome Allison) who was in his first varsity football game and a junior (Tommy Ludwig) who was in his first football game, period. It takes time.”

The bottom line, though, is that the Hornets are feeling a whole lot better about life than they were after last season’s first scrimmage.

“We need to do better and there will certainly be a lot of things to fuss about at practice this week,” said Daugherty. “But we really showed some promising signs. We really did.”

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North Rowan scrimmaged at Butler and A.L. Brown played host to Morganton Freedom in other scrimmages on Friday, but no information was available at deadline.