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KANNAPOLIS — A.L. Brown’s supersonic back Chris Carter made Fred T. Foard look like a horse-and-buggy on Friday night in the first round of the state 3A playoffs.
Carter set the tone for a 49-10 romp by the eighth-seeded Wonders (11-1) by racing 45 yards with the opening kickoff.
Carter, a junior, touched the ball only five times from scrimmage on the night, but managed to accumulate 102 yards rushing and 81 yards receiving. He was on the business end of 71-yard and 10-yard passes from Josh Lee and also romped 77 yards with a pitch as the Wonders exploded to a 28-10 halftime lead.
Now, that’s a big-play guy.
“Josh does a good job of getting me the ball on the perimeter,” said Carter, who has scored 18 TDs this fall. “Once I’m out there, it’s like everything just unfolds.”
“You just love to get the ball in Chris’ hands, added Lee. “He’s so fast and he breaks tackles, too.”
Foard scored twice in the second quarter on methodical drives out of their Wing-T offense.
But the Wonders answered both in less than a minute. After Foard QB David Kearns battled into the end zone on a fourth-and-inches sneak to cut an early Wonder lead to 14-7, Lee and Carter hooked up on that 71-yarder just 57 seconds later.
And after Foard got a field goal from James Raven to make it 21-10 in the second quarter. Jason Brown bolted 93 yards right up the gut with a kickoff return. Brown got a key block from of all people — the 140-pound Carter — to beat the first wave and another from Gerrell McCrae to ward off the final trio of Tiger defenders.
“We made some good athletic plays,” said Wonder coach Ron Massey.
That’s an understatement. Sort of like saying that Elvis came up with some pretty good songs.
“Kannapolis just hits you with so much speed and so many big plays,” said Foard coach Allen Gorry, who got blitzed by a similar Wonder whirlwind when he visited for a first-round playoff game two years ago. “We knew they’d have team speed on us and we knew we’d have to battle that factor all night.
“But, I’m tellin’ ya, when they hit you quick like that, it’s just hard to pump the boys back up. The wind’s knocked right out of your sails.”
The Wonders went to the break up 18, but in a bad mood.
Massey liked the huge plays engineered by Lee, Carter and Brown, but hadn’t liked what was going on upfront.
“Foard had controlled a lot of what went on at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball,” he said. “They’d kept the ball away from us a lot. I was determined to come out in the second half and see if we couldn’t run the ball better.
“Also, we hadn’t looked all that excited in the first half. I know we were coming off two straight weeks of emotional games (wins over rivals Northwest Cabarrus and Concord to clinch the South Piedmont Conference’s No. 2 playoff seed), but this is the time of year we have to be excited the whole ballgame.”
“We were lazy in the first half,” agreed Lee. “That second quarter (when Foard was outscored just 14-10), we were pretty terrible.”
And McCrae, who will be given at least two spots on the Wonders’ all-time outspoken team when he graduates in May, was even more blunt.
“The first half we played down to Foard’s level,” the towering defensive end said. ‘We had to come out in the second half and play at the Wonders’ level.
“We decided at halftime we weren’t putting up with that stuff anymore. We had to show them that when a team comes to K-Town, we’re the ones who run the show.”
The Wonders started running it right away. Foard had the ball first for the second half. If it could score it was still a ball game. Instead, the Tigers (7-5) were stuffed. Young linebacker Clifford White made a big hit on second down for a loss and on third down, Duran Lipscomb made Kearns hurry a pass that fell harmlessly.
The Wonders got the ball back and immediately smashed downfield. A 17-yard burst by Carter set up a short TD run by Eric Caldwell. David Henry’s fifth of seven PATS made it 35-10.
After that it was just a matter of what the final tally would read.
Massey tried to hold things down as much as possible, playing the Wonders’ recently promoted (and undefeated) jayvees for the final seven minutes, but his team still produced points.
Soph fullback Rock Johnson — now, there’s a football name — barreled in for one score, while veteran reserve Durand Stanback got the final one.
The only downside of the contest was that Fred T. Foard started playing a little bit like Fred T. Flintstone in the second half, using some caveman tactics as the game ebbed away. Penalized zero yards while playing a solid first half, the Tigers were penalized 80 yards in the second half, mostly for a string of unsportsmanlike conduct calls. Wonder corner DeAngelo Collins took one Lennox-Lewis-like lick from behind, but cooler heads prevailed.
“I thought Foard had a really good team and played us tough,” said Wonder defensive tackle Lee Basinger. “They had good players. That No. 45 (running back Jerrel Walton, who hammered out 109 yards on 21 carries) was an awesome player and ran hard.
“What happened out there later was just some frustration coming through. That’s the best way to put it.”
“It did get a little carried away.” admitted Gorry, a UNC grad. “But things settled down and the game ended cleanly.
“Kannapolis has a real fine team. They’re going to do well in the playoffs.”
Massey, who tried hard this week to make sure his team concentrated on ninth-seeded Foard and not its second-round opponent, allowed himself to start thinking about No. 1 seed South Point (a winner over Concord) shortly after the contest.
“I’ve watched South Point run up and down the field on me a few times (Massey’s previous team, Kings Mountain, was in South Point’s Southwestern Conference),with that redbone or hambone or whatever they call it.
“And it’ll be on the road and that makes it tough.
“I thought it really helped us to play at home tonight. That was crucial to our kids winning and moving to the next round.”
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