West Rowan football coach Scott Young was happy to get a 34-13 playoff victory but he was not happy when he looked over and saw one of his stars, Ben Hampton, on crutches.

“You have to credit thaty ballteam,” he said, nodding toward the Franklin players. “They’re well-coached and tough. They banged us up. We’ve got some injuries to get over.”

He didn’t feel Hampton’s injury, a twisted ankle, was horribly bad.

“He needs to get treated. We have to be careful with these injuries.”

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Not one member of the Franklin football team was blaming that busride of almost five hours on their 34-13 loss to West Rowan in the first round of the state 3A playoffs.

Especially Craig Younce, the 5-10 receiver that had created havoc all season long until Friday night.

“We stopped at every rest stop from Franklin to here,” he chuckled. “I don’t think that caused anything to hurt us.”

Younce found himself blanketed by just about everybody in the defensive backfield, from Terris Sifford, to Eric Weimer to Brandon Bailey. He did finish with five grabs for 86 yards but never got outside to use that 4.3 speed.

“They covered well,” said Younce. “We just couldn’t do what we wanted.”

Younce said he is being recruited by, among others, nearby Western Carolina, Appalachian State and has taken visits to North Carolina and South Carolina.

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WHYONLYNINE? Franklin coach Mark Leek was asked why he only played nine games in the regular season.

“We couldn’t get a 10th,” he said. “We would’ve had to drive as far as here and we just weren’t going to do that.”

Franklin is located in southwestern North Carolina near the Georgia line.