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ALBEMARLE — East Rowan’s Tom Eanes is a head football coach — not a starship captain — but he calculates his offensive unit traveled several parsecs between Tuesday and Saturday.
“Tuesday at practice our defense just wore the offense out,” said Eanes. “Compared to Tuesday, the offense showed light years of improvement in our scrimmage on Saturday night.”
3A East was up against the Albemarle Bulldogs. The Bulldogs are 1A, but coach Jack Gaster’s bunch is always one of the best teams in the state in that classification.
A key to the revival of the Mustang offense was Cal Hayes Jr., the Legion baseball star who is just getting his football legs back. Hayes, a junior in class as well as in name, doesn’t quite move at the speed of light, but it’s close enough. Eanes reported that Hayes had one 70-yard dash for a TD and showed off some fairly amazing moves.
“Cal made one 360 on the sideline and nobody ever touched him,” Eanes said.
More good news for East came from the quarterback position, where senior Raymondo Brady, returning from knee surgery, turned in a solid effort.
“Raymondo showed me some toughness. He stuck it up in there a few times,” Eanes said.
With Brady proving he’s healthy and another Legion star, Drew Davis (who was the No. 1 QB most of last year), now back with the team, Eanes is two-deep at the most critical position.
“It should be a pretty good battle between Raymondo and Drew,” he said.
Eanes said his offensive line, which is trying to plug the huge crater left by graduated superstar Danny Misenheimer, put together a solid day.
“Not just one individual, but the whole group,” said Eanes.
It was also a positive day for the East defense, and that’s saying something. Because the Bulldogs boast one of the best running backs in the known universe in T.A. McClendon, who’s scored 63 TDs over the past two seasons.
“We were physical and aggressive and had a lot of people flying to the football,”Eanes said. “A lot of our kids were around the ball. One guy didn’t have to make the tackle.”
Eanes noted that linebacker Blake Abernathy was “making a play every time he turned around” and that DB Adam Lambert, linebacker Jordan Shinn and lineman Cody Merrifield also stood out.
“We’ve still got work to do,” said Eanes. “With the new system, there’s still things for our kids to learn. But I’d have been scared to death if everything had gone perfect. We’ll be able to preach at them a little bit in practice this week.”
East opens at home against South Rowan on Friday.
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NORTH STANLY:Coach Rick Lewis’ Comets expected to battle Charlotte Latin on Saturday in Albemarle, but when three teams showed up at the same time, the Comets were moved to a time slot opposite pass-happy East Surry.
“We’d expected to be playing a running team, but East Surry throws it more than anybody except maybe North Rowan,” said Lewis. “So our secondary got ate up a little bit. But that was OK. It was a wake-up call that maybe our corners needed.”
Defensive back David Haddock did have an interception in the end zone.
The Comets’ running game found the going tough, but overall there were more positives than negatives for a team that is generally forecast to have a down year. Certainly young quarterback Robert Voorhees didn’t struggle. He fired three touchdown passes — two long ones to Kelly Russell and a 50-yard slant to Bryant Harris. Voorhees rang up 275 passing yards in the scrimmage.
“Robert did very well,” said Lewis. “But that didn’t surprise us. The surprise was how well our young receivers did.”
The Comets also displayed a stout defense against the run. Leaders were linebacker Patrick Holt and ends Jeffrey Hooks and Scott King.
“East Surry had one quarterback scramble for 25 yards, but other than that nothing was for more than seven,” said Lewis. “Mostly we held’em to gains of two and three.”
The Comets started shakily and had five penalties in the first 10 plays — but only two the rest of the day.
“It took a little while to get our heads on straight,” said Lewis. “But we settled down and got over the nerves. It was an upbeat day for us. The longer we played, the better we got.”
The Comets open at Garinger on Friday.
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DAVIE COUNTY: Davie scrimmaged against West Rowan and West Stokes in Mount Ulla on Friday and there were several interesting developments.
The bad news was two potentially damaging injuries — both on the offensive line. Right tackle Adam Barber went down and is scheduled for an MRI today. Three-year starter at left guard Andrew Rudy was also hurt, although it’s not known how seriously.
Davie’s youngsters struggled against West Rowan’s quick defensive unit. The War Eagle usually strong running game was stymied by the Falcons. It also surprised some observers that West Stokes (0-11 last season) scored twice against Davie, but maybe it shouldn’t have been a shock. After all, Davie is breaking in five sophomore starters on defense, while West Stokes returns its offense intact from a year ago.
The biggest positives for Davie were linebackers Patrick Lowery and Neil Rice, who proved to be as good as their press clippings. The junior stars made a number of big hits.
Then there was Nick Propst.
Propst, expected to be a wide receiver, took some snaps at quarterback and showed great quickness. No surprise there. He’s a monster athlete and one of the state’s top high jumpers.
Propst might help with QB duties — the first-stringer is still Dan Sullivan — because Jason Hogue, who was a productive reserve receiver last year, decided to come out for the team this week. Hogue gives War Eagle coach Doug Illing some experienced hands opposite speedy Rod Tenor and gives Illing some flexibility in using Propst’s talents.
Davie has a tough opener on Friday at Statesville.
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