WINSTON-SALEM — South Rowan football coach Rick Vanhoy wasn’t a big fan of Reynolds football Friday night.

And for good reason.

The Demons knocked the Raiders out of first place in the Central Piedmont Conference with a physical 17-10 victory at Deaton-Thompson Stadium.

Next week, however, there will not be a bigger Reynolds fan anywhere than Vanhoy.

And for good reason.

A Demon victory over West Forsyth and a South win at Mount Tabor would put the Raiders (7-3, 2-1) into the 4A playoffs for the second straight year. A West Forsyth win could throw the five-team league into a three-way tie and force the always-dreaded, ulcer-inducing draw for the two playoff spots.

“We need Reynolds to win and go ahead and be conference champs,” Vanhoy said. “We’ll take the No. 2 seed and then see who we play.”

Alex Mebane’s Demons (9-1, 3-0) certainly played like champions Friday. They made all the big plays but Mebane was not for one minute thinking his team is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

“Let me tell you something,” he said. “There are great athletes and great coaches at every school in our league. We feel fortunate to beat a very fine football team tonight.”

Yes, South is a very fine football team. But even fine football teams lose when three turnovers hand the opponent every one of its points.

“That was the key to the ballgame,” lamented Vanhoy. “Our mistakes helped them out a whole lot.”

And help Reynolds take a quick lead it would not relinquish.

Tim Cook’s first pass of the night for South was sent toward an open Nick Clemency. But it sailed on him and landed in the hands of Dwayne Ijames. He easily loped into the end zone and just like that, it was 7-0.

But as he has done so many times, Keith Garrett made sure South would rebound. He took the kickoff 49 yards. Cook scrambled for 14 yards, setting up Robby Basinger for a line drive, 39-yard field goal.

Garrett appeared to ooze the momentum away from Reynolds again in the second quarter when he took a punt 25 yards. A workmanlike, 9-play drive ensued.

Cook zipped a 10-yard strike to Garrett and a 15-yarder to Clemency. Tore Girty ran for four and then five yards, followed by a first-down run by Garrett. Suddenly, South was on the Reynolds 20 and seemed poised to take the lead. Instead, “poised” turned to “poison.”

Cook fumbled the snap and Reynolds recovered.

“It wasn’t that they shut us down,” said Vanhoy. “We made the key mistake here or the key penalty there.”

Unfortunately for South, its stout defense broke down for the only time of the night after Cook’s fumble. Reynolds quarterback Mike Russell darted and dashed, the Demon offense downfield. He finally scored on the drive’s seventh play when he made a great fake pitch and was gone, 33 yards. It put Reynolds up 14-3 at halftime and Russell already had 98 yards rushing.

It was a sign to Mebane, who tried to go long to 6-foot-4 Shrine Bowl receiver Derelle Mitchell time and again with no success whatsoever.

“We felt (South) was so good on defense as far as being physically tough, we needed to spread them out and get the ball to Derelle,” Mebane said.

Didn’t work. Although holding a six-inch advantage on Ricky Childers, he was null and void on this night. Childers, with a little help from guys like Dale Rice and Brad Lanning, stopped him cold.

“Ricky Childers is a great cornerback,” Vanhoy said. “Everybody saw why tonight. He took it as a challenge to shut (Mitchell)down.”

Mebane saw the writing on the wall.

“We were sputtering and I said, ‘Wait. Let’s go back to some of our basic stuff and let the defense win it.’”

But even the basic stuff was stuffed after halftime. Vanhoy’s defense came out with a renewed confidence and Russell was stopped cold. In fact, he had just eight yards in the last two quarters on 13 carries.

“We just picked up our intensity level a little bit,” Vanhoy said.

Garrett set up Girty for a nine-yard scoring run by carrying a punt 14 yards to the Demon 29. It brought South to within 14-10 late in the third period.

But South couldn’t get over the hump. Cook’s first pass of the fourth quarter was intercepted, leading to Thomas Barringer’s 44-yard field goal that actually hit the crossbar and bounced over.

The Raiders’ last gasp came with around six minutes left. Vanhoy called for a fake punt on his own 45 on fourth-and-4 but Lanning was stopped after a two-yard gain.

“Sometimes, you’ve just got to take a chance,” said Vanhoy. “You give the ball up and you don’t know if you’ll get it back.”

Reynolds had their only two first downs of the fourth period on its last series after taking over with 2:54 left, running out the clock.

Vanhoy tried to build up his troops afterward but the disappointment was evident.

“We had a chance to win the conference championship,” he said. “The kids hurt. They don’t feel good right now but they’ll feel better tomorrow. We have to regroup. Next week is a must win.”

Mebane was feeling the same way.

“This win puts us in the driver’s seat,” he said, “but nothing is guaranteed.”

Nothing, that is, except a bunch of Raiders pulling for Mebane’s team next Friday night.

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NOTES: Garrett had 52 yards on 12 carries. Girty had 41 on the ground. ... Mitchell caught just one pass for eight yards and ran three times for four yards. ... Joel Reyes, Jay Phillips and Randy Rigsby had outstanding defensive games. ... Reggie McConneaughey had a sack.