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The prep football notebook …
The physical scars remained evident
on South Rowan’s field Friday night.
Odd splashes of paint could be seen
where Raider officials spent the day covering up crude, insulting remarks
painted into the grass.
It was easy to assume, of course,
that West Rowan fans had visited South on Thursday night and done the damage as
a twisted show of support for their team. If that was in fact the case, the plan
backfired.
An angry Raider squad “smacked
West in the face,”in the words of Falcon head coach Scott Young, for a 14-0
lead in the first quarter. South maintained its high level of energy to force
overtime with a late touchdown and then won the game 31-24 in the second
overtime.
“It didn’t involve South Rowan
football players and it didn’t involve West Rowan football players, but they
had something extra to play for because of the things that happened between
these two schools,” Young said. “We had to try to defend that.”
But the rage that some of the South
players felt proved too much to contain.
“Did you see the field this
morning?”linebacker Joel Reyes asked after the game, still shaking and crying
with the emotions bubbling over.
“If we would have played at 9:30
(in the morning), that ambulance would have been full,”he added, pointing over
to the EMS crew on standby outside the stadium.
There didn’t appear to be many
cheap shots Friday night, but South did get a 15-yard taunting penalty after
scoring its second touchdown. South coach Rick Vanhoy loved the fast start, no
matter its cause, but also saw the dreaded let-down creeping up.
For all the energy and emotion South
invested in the first quarter, Joe Jackson’s punt return for a TD and a long
second-quarter drive left West tied 14-all at the half.
“We may have used a lot of energy
there in that first 10 minutes,”Vanhoy said. “We let them get back in the
game and then our emotions were probably swinging about as low as they could at
that point.”
But after South’s defense stopped
the Falcons in the second overtime, West’s players were left emotionally
drained and the Raiders basked in the glow of a victory they had to have: to
restore honor to their field, their school, their football team.
“A couple of our ‘friends,’
began West’s Ben Hampton, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “decided to go do
a little artwork at South Rowan, and that fired them up. We can’t blame all
that for the win — all our guys were ready to win because they wanted to show
South that, even if they got angry because of that, they couldn’t beat us.
“It definitely played a factor in
it.”
And not one the “artists” had in
mind.
Mustang coach Tom Eanes lauded the
play of running back Cal Hayes Jr. in Friday’s 53-19 loss to North. The
explosive junior rushed for 84 yards on 14 carries and scored his first
touchdown of the season on an 8-yard jaunt in the first quarter. He also made
East’s only reception of the game, snagging a 9-yard sideliner from
quarterback Raymondo Brady in the second period.
“He ran hard for us,” said Eanes.
“Then when we had some injuries he filled in on defense. He had to be pretty
tired after that.”
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NO THIN RED LINE: Eanes also praised
the members of his offensive line. Although guards Matt Butler and Justin Leazer,
tackles Trenton Freemon and Brandon Miller and center Adam Shepherd barely
average 200 pounds each, they paved the way as East picked up 250 yards rushing.
“Their technique is improving,”
Eanes said. “They’re getting on people and staying on their blocks longer.
People aren’t sliding off them, which was a problem last week.”
TheCavalier defense may not be in
midseason form, but it’s vastly improved from last season. A big reason is
provided by returning starter Jacques Taylor, a 6-foot-1, 270-pound lineman.
“Our coaches have been
conditioning us for this ever since our first scrimmage,” he explained after
recovering a fumble and causing general havoc in Friday’s 53-19 win over East
Rowan. “After Butler (North’s scrimmage opponent), we realized we weren’t
as fast as we wanted to be, so we volunteered to do extra running. We knew we
needed work and we wanted to pay for it then rather than on Friday nights.”
The Wonders’ 2000 debut — a 20-6
win over Statesville — came within a puddle or two of being pushed back to
Saturday night.
Severe lightning, which emptied not
only the playing field but the stands, and driving rain (at times visibility
from the press box was zero) pushed the game’s starting time back to 9 p.m.
After an 8:45 tour of the field,
officials, Wonder coach Ron Massey and Greyhound boss Roger Bost were satisfied
that the game could still be played safely. After a 15-minute warmup, the
hitting started.
The decision to play worked out,
although wet balls played a role in at least some of the nine fumbles and three
interceptions produced by a pair of likely playoff teams.
The big thing, though, was that the
field, which drained miraculously well, stayed in great shape. There was no
slipping and sliding and both teams apparently avoided serious injury.
The teams were extremely fortunate
to get the game in, because the same spree of electrical storms that plagued
Greyhound Hollow also delayed Mooresville-Davie County for an hour, and forced
the suspension of two nearby 3A Western Foothills Conference games and outright
postponement of the West Iredell-North Iredell game.
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Mike London and Dave Shaw
contributed to this notebook.
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