INDIANTRAIL — Talk about an optimist.
Tom Eanes had a couple of goals for his East Rowan High School football team Friday night when it took on Sun Valley in the season finale.
Eanes’ personal record as a coach for rushing yardage in one game is 749. His personal record for points is 60.
Alas, Eanes had to settle for a measly 479 yards on the ground and 58 points on the scoreboard.
Friday’s overwhelming 58-22 thrashing of the Spartans proved — finally — that the Hambone offense Eanes has installed can flourish at this school. And despite a 3-8 final record, every single Mustang was already looking forward to next season. Even the seniors.
“Y’all have something to look forward to next year,” said Raymondo Brady, who finished his career in style with 134 yards rushing as well as hauling in both of East’s receptions. “The Hambone’s fun to watch when you do it right. And tonight, everything clicked.”
From the first snap.
Cal Hayes began a night to remember when he took the first play from scrimmage 61 yards. Fifteen carries later, the junior had gobbled up a whopping 275 yards and had hit paydirt four times on runs of 17, 12, 47 and 38 yards.
“It seemed like everything was working tonight,” beamed Hayes.
And because it was, there were a lot of senior football players showing some heavy-duty emotions afterward. There were very few dry eyes wearing those white East Rowan uniforms.
Eanes wasn’t crying tears, just crying out to anyone who would listen how entertaining the Hambone is.
“We’re getting closer to where I want to be,” Eanes said. “When I was at East Surry, we had a big ballgame at the end like this that catapulted us forward. Itold the seniors thank you for jump-starting us for next year.”
This was a game that stunned Sun Valley on Senior Night. After Hayes’ opened with his long run, it took just three more plays to get into the end zone. Brady, Eanes’ jack-of-all-trades, ran 12 yards to the one where Jordan Shinn bulled over. It had taken exactly one minute and 14 seconds for East to get on the board and one could immediately sense the Mustangs would have their way against a porous Spartan defense.
How easy was it? On East’s second possession, Jordan busted up the gut for 14. It was Brady for 18 and then 13. And finally, Hayes scooted in from 17. With just six minutes gone, the Mustangs were already up 14-0.
But East has had trouble all season holding leads and by the end of the first quarter, Sun Valley had evened things at 14. The tying score came when punter Matt Belk dropped a snap and J.W. Hasty rumbled in from 45 yards out.
“We have let up this year when we’ve got the lead,” Eanes admitted. “We’ve preached to them to go for the jugular.”
The offense tried. The line opened gaping holes for the juking Brady and the spinning, twisting Hayes. On its first possession of the second quarter, Brady had runs of 17 and 26 while Hayes went 20, setting up another short Shinn scoring run. The defense quickly stopped Sun Valley and an eight-play drive ended with quarterback Drew Davis taking his turn at scoring. Two conversion runs after the touchdowns made it 30-14.
By halftime, East had run for 314 yards. Hayes already had 163 and Brady 108. The performance left Sun Valley coach Bill Flippen shaking his head.
“We’ve played real good defense until tonight,” said Flippen, whose team finished 2000 at 4-7. “I’ll tell you what, the credit goes to East Rowan. We weren’t real quick but that had to do with them.
(Hayes)runs hard.
With all of the offense, perhaps the most pivotal play of the first half was made by senior defensive lineman Cody Merrfield, who blocked a Sun Valley field goal with 18 seconds left. It seemed to propel the offense once the third quarter began.
Two more Hayes touchdown gallops had the Mustangs holding a 44-14 lead.
“Answering quickly in the second half was big,” said Eanes.
The game was over at that point. Fans simply waited to see how many yards Hayes would end up with and whether Brady would score in his last game.
Hayes’ last run was his 38-yard score. Then, Chris Cook, who played most of the game in the Spartan backfield, recovered a fumble on the Sun Valley four with two minutes left. Brady replaced Davis under center and ran a couple of times until he got his name in the scoring column.
At the moment the ref’s hands went up to signal the TD, Brady knew his career had come to a close.
“It hit me when I scored,” said Brady, who walked up to Cook afterward and said, “I don’t want to leave this field.”
But he did, along with 15 other seniors — seniors like Blake Abernathy, Mark Misenheimer, Matt Harris, Trey Ledbetter and on and on and on.
“When you’re out of the playoffs, you’re not sure how the kids will come out,” said Eanes, bursting with pride. “The seniors played tremendous. They’ll always remember their last game.”
After what happened in Indian Trail Friday night, how could any of them ever forget?
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NOTES: Hayes’ 275 yards broke the school record of 259, set by James Forney in 1983. ... Recording sacks were Misenheimer, Merrfield and Matt Butler, who had two. ... Shinn finished with 58 yards rushing. ... Ledbetter had an interception that set up a Hayes score. ... Taylor Weber had a conversion catch. ... The Mustangs scored on eight of nine possessions. ... Freshman Rusty Misenheimer kicked the first two extra points of his career. ... East had 18 runs of 10 yards or better. ... Things got ugly in the fourth period when the game was stopped for 20 minutes after the teams began pushing and shoving on the East sidelines. Order was quickly restored.
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