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Scott Young has left his West Rowan football team with a statement that should have sunk in by the time it takes the field tonight for its regular season finale at Central
Cabarrus:
“Let’s win that championship for ourselves and not share it with anybody.”
North Rowan coach Roger Secreast is surely informing his Cavaliers of the same thing. And at South Rowan, Rick Vanhoy can share the Central Piedmont Conference championship.
Think about that for a moment. Rowan County can have a playoff representative in 2A (North), 3A (West) and 4A (South) in the year 2000.
Who woulda thunk it?
Well, all three of the coaches, actually.
Vanhoy made it to the postseason last year and South has several appearances in its history. North seems to make it every year under the swashbuckling offensive style of Secreast. And Young knew he had a load of talent returning from an 8-3 team.
Young is even impressed with the two Rowan teams not going to the postseason.
“East Rowan is much improved from the first of the year,” Young said. “Look at the improvement Salisbury has made. The level of football is up at all the schools.”
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But at West, it means something a little different.
The Falcon program isn’t used to playoff football. Winning the South Piedmont Conference this season is the first title in school history.
In just two short years, Young has completely reversed the fortunes of what has always been known as a basketball school.
In his first year Young was 3-8. But he kept plugging away, hiring new assistant coaches, stalking the halls for potential players and telling everyone who would listen that West Rowan was going to win.
And sure enough, there Young was on Tuesday afternoon, writing out his playoff roster. His team is 9-1 going into tonight and 6-0 in the SPC.
“We’ve at least clinched a share,” he said, “so that’s our first one. Nobody can take that away from us.”
But Young would hate to settle on sharing first with the winner of the Kannapolis-Concord game, despite already owning the No. 1 seed. And he knows how tough tonight’s battle at Central Cabarrus (4-6) could be.
“Central Cabarrus owes us a lot,” said Young. “We knocked them out of the playoffs last year. (Michael) Ricks and (Lamont)Reid are two of the most dangerous weapons in our conference and they’re playing their last game. So they want to get this one under their belt.
“We could go as high as a No. 2 seed or as low as a 6 or 7. So this game means a lot.”
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Young did allow himself a few moments to think about what his team has accomplished this season. He knew he’d be good but ...
“To say in the early season that you have a team capable of beating Northwest Cabarrus, Kannapolis and Concord back-to-back-to-back — that’s a stretch for anybody.”
West avenged a loss to Northwest a year earlier by winning despite having its quarterback Jared Barnette out with an injury. The next week, West stole a victory from Kannapolis in the final minute.
“And at Concord, James (Francis) went through his ordeal. The team had to come together.”
And what does all that mean?
“It means they have some character,” Young said proudly.
Young also looks back to Week 2 when the Falcons suffered their first and only loss of the season to South Rowan.
“That might have been the best thing to happen to us,” he said. “Our kids were were guilty of reading the paper too much.”
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South, meanwhile, has different scenarios to worry about. If South (7-3, 2-1) loses at Mount Tabor (0-3, 1-8-1) and West Forsyth (6-4, 2-1) beats Reynolds, (9-1, 3-0) it’s over for the Raiders. If South and West win, there will be a three-way tie, forcing a draw. And if Reynolds wins, South is in as the No. 2 seed. In fact, Vanhoy has already said he’s pulling for Reynolds.
Regardless of the scenarios, tailback Keith Garrett says the Raiders will be focused, despite last week’s loss at Reynolds that could’ve given South the title outright.
“We had high hopes of winning the conference championship,” said the county’s leading rusher (940 yards). “You lose it (the final was 17-10) and it takes everything out of you. We could’ve won.”
But tonight is another chance.
“We can’t lose,” Garrett said. “But we play better under pressure. We’ll go out there intense.”
North (5-0, 6-4) has a chance to wrap up the Central Carolina Conference outright.
It’s a big night. Rowan County has something very important to play for tonight.
Stay tuned.
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Ronnie Gallagher is the sports editor of the Post.
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Ronnie