When North Rowan found itself mired in a three-game losing streak earlier this season, head coach Roger Secreast kept repeating the same thing over and over:

“I think we’ll be OK once we get to 2A.”

Now the Cavs stand two wins away from the Central Carolina Conference crown, and Secreast has been proven 100 percent correct.

The toughest part of North’s conference schedule — Ledford and High Point Central — came after nonconference tests most 2A teams would run away and hide from.

The Cavs lost 41-21 at 4AScotland County, but were within 28-21 after three quarters. The following week, 3A power A.L. Brown had to hang on for a 35-28 win over North.

The other two losses came against 3A West Rowan, 20-7, and at 4A South Rowan, 24-7.

“I think we’re one of the best 5-4 2A teams in the state,”Secreast said. “South Rowan’s in first place, West Rowan’s in first place, Kannapolis is in second place, Scotland County is rated No. 11 in the state in 4A. We haven’t played bad people and we were always in the games.”

Most importantly in those four losses, the Cavs saw some of the biggest, fastest and best players in the state. So when it came time for 2A competition, it was no big deal.

In games it was supposed to win, North overwhelmed Salisbury and Lexington, winning by 27 and 22 points, respectively. In the two the Cavs weren’t supposed to win, North’s superior strength on the line and speed everywhere else was too much for Ledford and defending CCCchamp High Point Central to stop.

With Friday night’s 36-31 win over the Bison, only two games the Cavs are supposed to win stand between them and a perfect league record — to offset those four very important nonconference losses.

“They’ve locked it up,”impressed High Point coach Gary Whitman said. “They’d have to lose two to somebody and that’s not going to happen.”

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not done yet: Alex Gordon, the star of the High Point win when he took a roughing the punter penalty in the closing minutes, has at least one more week of extra duty remaining.

Regular kicker Kevin Rutherford’s leg is healing, but Secreast said the Cavs have no plans to rush him back into action this week against North Stanly. Rutherford, a senior, played in North’s final soccer match Monday night and remains available for extra points, but Gordon will keep kicking off and punting.

Gordon, a 5-foot-11, 265-pound lineman, kicked for North in the first two games of the 1999 season before suffering a leg injury. He also kicked in middle school, but is ready to give the job back to Rutherford.

“Just put the ball on the ground and kick it and hope they don’t run it back,”he said of the Cavs’ strategy. “I’ll let him go back to that.”

As for that hit Gordon took, with North backed up to its own 11-yard line, leading 36-31 with two minutes to play, it was nothing the big sophomore couldn’t handle.

“I’m glad Alex Gordon took that hit,”Marcus Lawing said with a laugh. “That was the key play. He blocks for us, so he can take those hits.”

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anxious moments: Until that last flag flew, the Cavs were in serious trouble. Without the roughing penalty, they may even have lost after watching High Point score nine points in the final 2:34.

Had the Bison come up with the go-ahead score, a pair of blown Cavalier scoring chances would have weighed heavily over the rest of the season.

Dre Byrd returned an interception all the way to the Bison 2-yard line early in the third quarter. North quickly moved back 10 yards on a pair of false starts, then an illegal shift wiped out Alfonzo Miller’s touchdown pass to James House.

ABison pass interference call actually gave North a new set of downs from the 5, but four plays later, Miller fumbled a hastily run fourth-down play at the goal line.

“We got too excited and the kids made mistakes. They knew that if they got that one in, the game was probably over,”Secreast said. “But I’d rather them be excited than not excited. I can handle that.”

It got a lot easier to handle when Jonathan Lomax recovered a High Point fumble in the end zone five plays later to make it 36-22 anyway.

The real game-breaker came at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Miller faked a short pass, then fired a beautiful deep ball to Chris Phillips for a 32-yard gain. Three Lawing runs set up fourth-and-1 at the 2, but Miller’s run was stopped short.

“We could’ve kicked a field goal there, but even though we didn’t make it, we knew we’d make them go 99 yards to score,”Secreast said.

High Point managed just 66 yards, to the North 33, before House forced a fumble that Lomax recovered. And the drive took 6:08 off the clock.

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almost over: For defending state champion High Point Central, Friday’s loss was hard to handle. The CCC gets only two playoff berths this season, meaning the Nov. 3 showdown against Ledford will knock one of the league’s perennial powers out of the postseason.

“They have to decide what they want to do,”Whitman said. “We don’t have many seniors, but if our seniors want to go to the playoffs, they’re going to have to step it up. If they don’t, they probably just need to turn their stuff in and we’ll start building for next year.”