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KANNAPOLIS — A.L. Brown football coach Ron Massey says his team should be the underdog this Friday when it travels to Mount Ulla to take on West Rowan in what looms as the game of the year for area teams. Well, at least it’s the game of the year until West goes to Concord on Oct. 13 or until the Wonders entertain those same Spiders on Nov. 3. All three are still unbeaten in the 3A South Piedmont Conference.
Your first inclination is to giggle when Massey tries to pass off his collection of growling greyhounds as underdogs. The Wonders (6-0 overall, 3-0
SPC) are merely ranked No. 2 in the state in their classification and have merely won 45 of their last 48 games, 30 straight regular-season contests and 21 straight SPC games. Not to mention the fact that they’ve beaten unranked West every single time the teams have gotten together in football. And they’ve been playing off and on since 1965.
But wait, Massey is saying it again.
“We have to be underdogs,” he says, “Northwest Cabarrus has a great football team and West (5-1, 3-0) ran up almost 400 yards on them last week. West has a defense with nine senior starters. And we’re going to their place. That gives them an edge. We know it’ll be hostile over there.”
OK, so maybe it’s a tossup. But the Wonders — underdogs?
Tell West coach Scott Young that the Wonders are underdogs and he makes a face like he’s just swallowed a bar of lye soap.
“We’re a good football team, but Kannapolis is a great football team,” Young says. “They’ve got so much speed on defense. It’s hard to hold a block on those guys.”
But these are hardly the same Wonders as last year. No Ryan Craft. No Kurjuan Kirkpatrick. No Desmond Williams and no Justin Hardin. And for that matter, no coach Bruce Hardin.
“Kannapolis lost a quality coach,” shrugs Young. “But they gained another one. Kannapolis is still Kannapolis.”
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Last year’s West-Wonders clash at A.L. Brown’s Memorial Stadium was a great game. The Wonders won 21-7, but it was still 7-7 into the fourth quarter. The Wonders ultimately had to make a goal-line stand to ice it. The hero of that game, Duran Lipscomb, is still around. He’s an outstanding linebacker, but was filling in at fullback when he broke a 78-yarder. Lipscomb, 5-foot-11 and 187 pounds, is one of the team’s two three-year starters (guard Wally Tuttle is the other) and you would recognize him as a football player even if you ran across him at Sunday School.
Most all the Wonders are muscular from year-round weightlifting, but Lipscomb has less fat than a super-model. You can actually see the veins in his leg-sized forearms throbbing. Lipscomb says that West is a good team and that last year’s game with the Falcons was the longest one he’s ever played in.
“Way too close last year,” he says. “Way too much stress.”
Ask Lipscomb about the Wonder mystique, the legend that other teams crumble the moment they see the boys with the big green K’s on their lids take the field, and he laughs.
“Ain’t seen none of that,” he says. “Maybe it used to be that way. I mean, we used to have (Nick) Maddox and (Desmond) Miller and (Phillip) Johnson. Three years ago — even two years ago (when the Wonders beat West 54-6) — we had some people. Now, we’re just ordinary guys who work in practice and play hard in games. I haven’t seen anyone all year who was scared of us. Everyone we played so far thought they were going to beat us.
“At least,” he says, allowing himself a small smile, “they thought that.”
West is thinking that.
“Oh yeah, says center Daniel Kluttz, “we know this school has never beaten them. It’s definitely something that we’ve discussed.”
“They are the No. 2 team in the state and all that.” says right tackle Matt Moore. “If we beat them they’d give us a parade from the (West Rowan) Grill right down to the school.”
Taurus Cunningham, the quiet 270-pound left tackle who is on every recruiting list, knows he will often be matched against the Wonders’ star lineman Lee
Basinger, who has already piled up 64 tackles, five sacks and four fumble recoveries.
“Basinger is a good player,” says Cunningham. “But I’ll be ready to play. We all will.”
“Last year, we played Kannapolis a pretty good football game and still lost,” says Young. “We have an excellent opportunity Friday. If we can hold down the mistakes we can win. Do our kids believe they can beat Kannapolis? I’m still not sure they do. But I sure hope they do.”
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The Wonder coaches, however, don’t seem to have any doubts that West is capable of beating them. Especially if Brown makes the sort of mistakes that turned its games with North Rowan and Central Cabarrus into nights at the circus.
Wonder running backs coach Glenn Cook has been around since 1988 and has seen West teams come and go. He says this is their best.
“They’re as good on both sides of the ball as I’ve seen,” Cook says. “They’re big upfront, they’ve got great linebackers
(S.J. Culbertson and James Francis) and a great free safety (Terris Sifford) and they execute. West presents problems. Anyone who plans on beating them had better bring their “A” game.
“West has won every year in middle school forever. And now they’ve got a high school coach who has been able to corral all that talent. He’s turned ‘em around — done an outstanding job.”
Defensive guru Aubrey Hollifield, who came to Kannapolis from Kings Mountain with Massey, is looking forward to his biggest challenge to date.
“West will be the best we’ve seen,” he said. “They’ve got a big-time tackle (Cunningham), they two-platoon and they can do a lot of different things. “Everybody guns for us around here like they gunned for Shelby back home, but that’s what makes it fun.”
Massey said Wonder coaches dissected film for hours, looking for Falcon weaknesses to attack.
“But we didn’t find any,” says Massey. “We finally just said, ‘Shoot, we’ll just run our usual stuff and see what happens.’”
The “usual stuff” has been pretty good so far. Speedy back Chris Carter, for instance, averages 12 yards per carry.
Statistically, the teams are mirror images. Against comparable schedules (both have played South and North), West has piled up 2,004 yards of offense. The Wonders have amassed 2,035. The Wonders have scored more points, mostly because strong safety Jason Brown has scored on defense each of the last three weeks.
West’s experienced defense allows 11 ppg; the younger Wonders grudgingly yield 12.5.
“West is good,” says Wonder quarterback Josh Lee, who has a relative in the Falcon marching band. “There’s no doubt, that team is for real.”
“And us never losing to them, that won’t matter this Friday,” adds Tuttle. “We didn’t even know about all that.”
Massey sure isn’t emphasizing the streak. He looks like he might have a coronary anytime anyone dares to mention it.
“We’re underdogs in this one,” he pleads one last time. “But yeah, we’re excited. This is the sort of game kids like to play. It’s why they put in those hours of practice. And it’s the kind of game coaches want to coach. It’ll tell us if we’re going to be able do anything in the playoffs.”
It’ll tell West the same thing.
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