LANDIS —Dadgum it, folks, South Rowan has one heck of a football team. And dadgum it, the Raiders proved it to anyone who remained unconvinced on Friday night in a bell-ringing 26-14 win over 4A Central Piedmont Conference rival West Forsyth.

“Dadgum it” has to be the strongest language South Rowan coach Rick Vanhoy ever uses. It’s also the expression he uses most frequently. Fortunately, “dadgum it” is versatile and can be used to describe both good things and bad things. For many years, there were “Dadgum it, we shouldn’t have let that one get aways.” But the negative “dadgum its” have recently been replaced by positive “Dadgum it, we took it to ‘em, didn’t wes?”

South is 10-3 over its last 13 games, has won five straight against CPC opponents — you know, those bad ‘ol boys from the big city of Winston-Salem — and is 7-2 on the season and 2-0 in the CPC.

Dadgum it, the Raiders even have a good band and play in front of a ton of rowdy fans.

Why not ask veteran West Forsyth coach Russell Stone about those dadgum Raiders.

“I’m disappointed tonight,” said Stone, “because South made fewer mistakes. South pounded us upfront. South flat-out beat us.”

That it did. The Raiders won the battle in both trenches.

The Raider defense? Simply unbelievable. West scored twice, once with the aid of a questionable pass interference call late in the third quarter, once after a bad snap on a Raider punt attempt gave the Titans the ball on the Raider 21. West had 113 total yards.

South’s offensive line was just as impressive.

There were times when South backs Keith Garrett and Tore’ Girty, who split the Raiders’ four TDs, were still hanging on to the shirttail of a hog or two when they were already seven yards downfield.

“We didn’t plan to pass much,” said Raider center Tripp Isenhour. “We said we were going to run it right up the middle and that’s exactly what we did. That was the story of this game. We were drivin’, hittin’ and fightin’ all night long.”

“We stopped ourselves a few times,” said Vanhoy. “But West didn’t stop us much. That offensive line, I’m proud of them. And the running backs ran so hard. Garrett did what he usually does and Girty stepped up big-time.”

Vanhoy said the Raiders started slowly against Davie County last week and never got down to business until the third quarter. But they were all business from the opening kickoff against the Titans. Brad “Hit Man” Lanning got that point across when he accelerated down the field like a runaway train and nearly decapitated the Titan return man.

Then Lanning, all 160 or so pounds of him, destroyed the Titans’ first running play. Then he broke up their first pass play. Then they punted.

“All week we heard about how they were coming down here to get after us,” said Lanning, who was hoarse from screaming at this teammates to maintain their intensity. “It made me mad, hyped me up. I thought we were real physical, more physical than they were. We just wore them out.”

South’s offense fed on the juice from Lanning’s big start, scoring in four plays. QB Tim Cook hit only two passes on the night, but connected on a big one to Brandon Yow to set up a Garrett touchdown for a 7-0 lead.

South’s defense then went out and stymied the Titans again.

“We just couldn’t block their linebackers,” said Stone. “They just blew up our fullback time after time on our isolation play.”

But then came South’s first adversity. The bad snap on the punt followed and the Titans cashed in to get back even.

No matter. South wasn’t about to let one awful play offset 20 solid ones.

“After the bad snap, the kids responded,” said Vanhoy. “Every time that game ebbed and flowed, they came right back. Dadgum it,we took it right back down the field on them on nothing but running plays.”

The Raider drive was impressive to watch. A dozen straight runs, without even the hint of a pass. Cook handed it off and Isenhour and his buddies plowed paths for the backs. Some who haven’t seen him have the mistaken impression that Garrett, because of his 150-pound frame, is a dancing ballerina, but that’s far from accurate. Most of his yards come between the tackles.

Girty capped the 63-yard push from the 5 and South led 14-7 at the half.

“The coaches told us at halftime we had to keep a fire in our butt,” said defensive lineman Jimmy Propst, who helped limit West to a pair of first-half first downs. “We had to suck it up and get even more physical. We had to have pressure, pressure, pressure. We had to keep making the big stops.”

South kept that junkyard-dog mentality going after the break.

West back Jamie Lilly dropped a pitch and Raider end Randy Rigsby fell on it. That set the stage for 10 more smashmouth plays and another Garrett TD. It was 20-7 after Robby Basinger’s PAT attempt sailed right.

But then that momentum swung hard against the Raiders.

West, energized by Stone’s switch to Thomas Richmond at tailback, punched in a TD early in the fourth quarter after its only real drive of the game to cut South’s lead to 20-14.

That TD was quickly followed by one heck of a diving interception of Cook near midfield by David Heck with 7:32 remaining. And suddenly South fans were thinking of all the ones that got away in the bad times.

“We had the perfect scenario for victory set up,” said Stone.

Against the old Raiders — maybe. But dadgum it, not against these guys.

Three plays after the pick, Propst and Daniel Hallman plowed Titan QB Josh McGee for a sack and West had to punt.

Now the enemy was the clock. South knocked off several precious minutes thanks to a Cook-to-Garrett pass for a first down. With under three minutes remaining, Joel Patterson, under heavy pressure, got away a super punt that was downed at the Titan 3.

“Now they had to go the whole field,” said Vanhoy. “And against our defense, that wasn’t likely to happen.

It didn’t.

Three plays netted seven yards. On fourth-and-3, the Titans had to go for it. Richmond was crunched after two yards by Anthony Rhyne, Rigsby, Propst. And finally by Lanning, who send the whole pile crashing to the Donnell Stadium turf.

“Four guys hitting the tailback two yards downfield?” grinned Vanhoy. “What’s that say about our defense?”

Well, dadgum it, it says a lot.

Girty tacked on a score with a minute left, and it was time to celebrate.

“People say all we can do is run the ball up the middle,” said Vanhoy. “But if our line blocks like this and our backs run like this and we defend like this, well, dadgum it, we’ll just keep right on doing it.”

Dadgum it, indeed.