In the first two rounds of the state high school football playoffs, West Rowan has faced teams with great athletes.
The Falcons have come out on top with big margins of victory over Franklin and High Point Andrews.
But how will West fare tonight against great athletes and a great tradition?
The Falcons (12-1) make the short trip to Mooresville to face the second-seeded Blue Devils (12-1) in the quarterfinals of the 3A playoffs. While they’re the new kid on the playoff block, being in the postseason is nothing new for Mike Carter and his speedy option club.
“We have our hands full,” said West coach Scott Young, who wasn’t only referring to the game. School has been out for Thanksgiving and he has to make sure the players are thinking football, not leftover turkey.
“We’ve got to bring them in early (today),” Young said. “We can’t have them messing around. We have to get them focused on their job.”
And their job? Stop a classic wishbone offense that Carter has made famous everywhere he has been.
“The wishbone doesn’t scare me,” Young said. “It’s the execution of the triple option. They don’t run a great deal of plays but what they run, they do it well.”
Mooresville will be handing off to a stable of good running backs, including Chris Winford. He has rushed for 1,722 and scored 28 touchdowns. Last week, in a 24-7 win over T.C. Roberson, Winford fumbled early, helping Roberson to a 7-0 lead. But he quickly atoned for the mistake, running for 202 yards and two more scores.
“He gets a lot of publicity and rightfully so,” Young said of Winford. “He deserves it. He has great vision and has big play potential. He’s unlike anyone we’ve seen lately, other than, maybe, Chris Carter at Kannapolis.”
Also, Mooresville can call on fullback Carl Safrit and tailback Lonnell Dunn, whose father was once a star at South Rowan.
“It’s perhaps the best speed we’ve seen,” said Young. “Our defense has to play with great technique. Every time we change a front or give them a different look, we’ve got to know our responsibilities.”
West, the South Piedmont Conference champions, scored 29 unanswered points last week after falling behind to Andrews 12-0 and went on to a 36-19 win. Quarterback Jared Barnette, who plays big in big games, was almost flawless, throwing for 238 yards on just 10 completions. Horatio Everhart caught four touchdown passes.
Tonight, they face a solid defensive backfield, led by Brandon Winford, who has eight interceptions.
Young, in just his third year as a head coach, knows Carter from passing leagues in the summer.
“I know he’s a man who works hard and will have his team ready,” Young said.
One of West’s playoff changes has to do with hair.
Running back Ben Hampton, for instance, is now a blonde.
“Some of the linemen shaved their heads and Ben wanted to do something a little something different,” Young said.
Will the coach be dying his hair with another playoff victory?
“I’m not dying my hair that orange color,” he laughed.
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NOTES: Carter has also coached at Salisbury and Davie County. ... No major injuries to report in the West camp. “We’re a little banged up,” said Young, “but everybody will be ready to go by game time.” ... Both teams are high-scoring. In two playoff games, West has scored 70 points and Mooresville 59. ... Mooresville has averaged 10 wins per season over the last six years. ... West is in the midst of its best playoff surge ever. ... If West wins, it has two scenarios for the semifinals. If South Point wins as well, the Falcons go to Belmont. If Ragsdale beats South Point, West is at home.
BC-BKC—Puerto Rico Shootout-Rdp, Bjt,0934
Without Majerus, Utah routs American
Eds: PMs. STANDS for BC-BKC—College Bkb Rdp.
BAYAMON, Puerto Rico (AP) — With coach Rick Majerus back home recovering from knee surgery, Utah made sure it didn’t have a letdown at the Puerto Rico Shootout.
Trace Caton scored 19 points as No. 13 Utah pounded Division II American Puerto Rico 94-37 Thursday at American University’s Eugenio Guerra Arena.
“This was a game we really needed,” said Utah assistant coach Dick Hunsaker, who filled in for Majerus.
The Utes, who will play Georgia on Friday in the second round of the holiday tournament, closed the first half with a 39-6 run to take command against an overmatched opponent, and outrebounded them 45-15 overall.
“We got a lot in,” Hunsaker said. “We recognize that they weren’t at our level and we wanted to keep the score down, but we also had to look out for ourselves. We have not been playing well. We’re looking for our identity as a team because we have so many new guys and we don’t really have a team leader yet.”
Chris Burgess added 11 points for Utah (2-0), which used 13 players, each playing at least 11 minutes. Kevin Bradly had 10 points and six assists. American (0-1) did not have a player in double figures.
Also at the Puerto Rico Shootout, No. 5 Stanford beat Old Dominion 84-60; Memphis edged Miami, Ohio, 60-59; and Georgia defeated Indiana State 83-64.
In the Great Alaska Shootout, Syracuse upset No. 21 DePaul 92-84 and Ohio State routed Florida State 90-65.
American, severely outsized by Utah, stayed in the game during the first 10 minutes. Utah opened a 10-point lead with 11:44 left in the half on a 3-point shot by Kevin Bradly. From there, the Utes took charge and ended the half with a 59-16 lead.
Flor Melendez, former coach of the Puerto Rico and Argentine national teams who was recently hired by American, knew his team was not in the same class as Utah.
“We played with them for the first 10 minutes and then again for eight minutes in the second half,” Melendez said. “But I think that universities like this are much more prepared than we are.”
No. 5 Stanford 84, Old Dominion 60
Ryan Mendez scored 18 points and Casey Jacobsen added 16 as Stanford beat Old Dominion.
Stanford led 36-26 at halftime, and used a 10-2 run capped by Jason Collins’ layup to make it 50-32 with 14:44 left.
The Cardinal (2-0), who will play Memphis on Friday, kept building their advantage and went up by as many as 30 points — at 71-41 with under six minutes remaining on Mendez’s 3-pointer.
Stanford coach Mike Montgomery said he wasn’t pleased with his team’s first-half performance.
“We missed a lot of shots,” Montgomery said. “We’d come down, they’d foul us. We’d miss free throws. We were getting a lot of good looks and missing shots.”
Collins had 10 points and 10 rebounds, and his twin brother, Jarron, added eight points and nine rebounds.
Pierre Greene scored 10 points for Old Dominion (1-2), which shot just 22-of-62 from the field.
Memphis 60, Miami (Ohio) 59
Scooter McFadgon’s jump shot with a half-minute left lifted Memphis past Miami of Ohio for coach John Calipari’s first victory with the Tigers.
Memphis trailed 56-50 with 4:19 left, and was down 59-58 with 58 seconds remaining after Miami’s Mike Ensminger made a layup.
Kelly Wise led Memphis (1-1) with 22 points and 14 rebounds. But he missed two free throws with 14 seconds left that would have given Memphis a three-point lead.
“We made it simple in the end, swing the ball and post him,” Calipari said. “If he wants to have the ball, he’s got to learn to make free throws down the stretch.”
Calipari, the former coach at Massachusetts and the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, was hired by Memphis in March. He lost his first game with the Tigers, against Temple, last week.
Guard Jason Grunkemeyer had 24 points and five rebounds for Miami (0-2).
Georgia 82, Indiana State 64
Ezra Williams scored 21 points to lead Georgia past Indiana State.
Robb Dryden, Georgia’s 7-foot-1 center, had three blocks and nine rebounds. Anthony Evans added 15 points and four assists for the Bulldogs (1-2).
Michael Menser scored 15 points, all on 3-point shots, and Djibril Kante had 12 for Indiana State (0-1), which was outrebounded 45-22.
Georgia trailed by 10 early but went up 32-31 at halftime. The Bulldogs, playing strong zone defense, put together a 14-4 run to lead 62-52 with six minutes left.
Syracuse 92, No. 21 DePaul 84
In Anchorage, Alaska, Preston Shumpert scored a career-high 36 points and Syracuse held off a furious second-half rally to upset DePaul in the opening round of the Great Alaska Shootout.
DeShaun Williams had 25 points and Damone Brown 16 for the Orangemen (2-0).
Lance Williams led DePaul (1-1) with 18 points, and Bobby Simmons had 17 points and 13 rebounds.
A 3-pointer by DePaul’s Rashon Burno cut Syracuse’s lead to 86-80 with 1:05 left. But Brown hit five free throws and Allen Griffin one in the final 44 seconds to seal the victory.
Ohio State 90, Florida State 65
Perfect shooting and 23 points by Brian Brown led Ohio State over Florida State.
Brown hit all nine of his shots, including five from 3-point range. His 16 points in the first half paced the Buckeyes (2-0) to a nine-point lead.
Brent Darby added 18 as the Buckeyes guards overwhelmed Florida State (0-2). Like Brown, most of Darby’s points came in a variety of jump shots away from the basket.
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