GREENSBORO — Chances are that Justin Hardin’s parents have been forced to ground him from time to time for minor infractions, but odds are he’s never been grounded like he was in the 52nd Annual East-West All-Star football game.

A.L. Brown graduate Hardin was the starting quarterback for the West team, which held on for a 14-10 win on Wednesday night, but the 3A South Piedmont Conference Player of the Year didn’t get to throw a single pass.

Not one. Nada. Nein. Zilch. Zippo. Zero.

Hardin, who tossed 41 TD passes over the past two years for the Wonders, wasn’t alone in experiencing an eerie no-passing-zone sort of evening. The other West quarterback, North Buncombe’s Brent Silver, suffered exactly the same fate. If Silver made a pass, it was at a West cheerleader.

Both West QBs spent a long, long night that contained enough rain, lightning and gloom to discourage even the most diligent mailman. All they got to do was inconspicuously run Rosman’s flex bone offense and shuffle the ball to an assortment of running backs.

Hardin and Silver were victims of intentional grounding by West coach James Fox of the 1A Rosman Tigers. Fox has won 10 games per season by running the ball down people’s throats in the Smoky Mountains since dinosaurs ruled the planet. And apparently Fox is convinced that the forward pass is a new-fangled idea that’s not to be trusted any more than a plaid-coated used car salesman. Short of being down 50 points with 50 seconds left, Fox isn’t going to try anything so revolutionary and risky as an aerial. When Fox airs it out, he’s hanging the wash on the clothes line.

A disappointed Hardin could be seen on the sidelines, pretending to throw paper airplanes and making gestures to family members (former Wonder coach Bruce and twin brother Blair) in the stands. All for naught. The West ran 45 plays. All 45 relied on the infantry, rather than the air force.

“I knew we planned to try to pound it, to take advantage of our size up front,” said Justin, who will play this fall at The Citadel. “But, man, I didn’t know we’d run it on every single play. Especially when they shut us down on our first few series, I thought we’d try a pass to loosen them up.”

But there was no loosening of the reins. Not once.

“I’m not ever going to second-guess a coach,” shrugged Bruce Hardin, who will debut as The Citadel’s offensive coordinator this fall. “And when you win, you sure can’t say anything.”

But Bruce had to feel a few pangs of disappointment. He’s a proud papa first and foremost and he would’ve liked nothing better than for his son to have shown the 8,253 fans at Grimsley High School’s Jamieson Stadium, the rifle arm that helped the Wonders go undefeated the last two regular seasons.

“We sent mama (Mrs. Hardin) home at halftime,” the coach said with a rueful smile. “I almost hoped that they (the West) would get behind, so they’d have to throw it a little.”

“That’s what I kept telling coach Fox,” said Justin. “We get down, we gotta throw it.”

But the West’s defense, which knocked the pass-happy East back time and again (penalties helped a bunch) wouldn’t allow that to happen.

And Fox just kept banging away at the East line, even after the West fumbled on three straight first-half plays.

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Even though his night was mostly incomplete, it wasn’t a waste of time for Justin. He was a good soldier and put aside his personal frustrations long enough to run the plays to the best of his ability for the good of the team.

Some of his teammates refused to do that.

“We had a few attitude spurts,” admitted Hardin, who saw one teammate ejected and watched another depart the premises during a lightning delay.

“But it all turned out OK because we won,” he added. “This was a hot week with a lot of hard work, so you really want to win this game. There was good fellowship this week, but if we’d lost, the memories wouldn’t be nearly as special.”

Hardin, 5-11 and 180 pounds, helped the West prevail by directing the team 62 yards on 13 plays for a second-quarter TD that wiped out an early 3-0 East lead.

Hardin’s best play came on the touchdown. He made a perfect option pitch to Most Outstanding Player Lashun Peoples of Carver— while being leveled by an East defensive end. Peoples took the pitch 10 yards to the end zone, but Hardin didn’t get to watch.

“I never saw what happened,” he said. “I was laying there on the ground, holding my jaw. He got me pretty good.”

Hardin, who later banged up a knee and had to get halftime treatment, took most of the first-half snaps, then cheered for his teammates as Silver directed the winning TD drive in the second half. Hardin did have the honor of being under center for the clinching snaps, as the West finally managed to run out the clock.

“It was all right,” said Blair, who ventured onto the field for the postgame celebration. “Justin won his last game as a high school player. Not everyone gets to do that.”

“And Justin got to beat Daryl Barnes (the East head coach),” added Bruce. “We had some real battles when I was at West Charlotte and Daryl was at Richmond County, but I never did beat him. I told Justin to go get him.”

And Justin did what he could. Even on a night when he was grounded.