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KANNAPOLIS — They say there’s a first time for everything, and further proof was offered Saturday night at Trojan Stadium.
South Rowan and Northwest Cabarrus have met every fall in football since 1977. Never in the series had South been held scoreless until Glen Padgett’s tough Trojans (4-1) did a pretty fair impression of Greg Maddux and shut out the Raiders 12-0.
It was a surprise. South (4-2) is not a monster offensive team, but it’s a pretty good one. After all, it moved the ball on A.L. Brown and West Rowan. But against the Trojans, South’s offense put up a meager 28 net yards and accumulated a paltry three first downs — all early. It was excruciating — sort of like watching a basketball team shoot 12 percent from the field.
“You just have to credit Northwest’s defense,” said South coach Rick Vanhoy, after his team lost for the third straight year to the Trojans. “We tried every play we had and they stopped it all. They took away everything.”
“South has lots of weapons and it poses problems for people,” said Padgett. “But we were prepared for what they do, our kids executed the game plan and we tackled well.
“Our defense just did a nice job.”
That may be the understatement of the year. But then, someone probably said, ‘Hey, nice job” to Wilt Chamberlain that night he scored 100 points.
Anyway, Padgett’s gameplan looked pretty basic, but was brilliant in its simplicity. The Trojans stacked every available human in the box on first down, and held South to a yard or so on its running play. Then they’d do the same thing on second down.
Eventually, South would face third-and-long and have to throw. And if the Raiders have a weakness, it’s that their passing game doesn’t scare anyone. South threw l 13 times and completed one — for eight yards. That didn’t get it done.
It wasn’t all the fault of South QBs Ricky Childers and Tim Cook. Their protection broke down. The Trojans ran a jailbreak on every obvious pass, sacking Cook four times and Childers twice. When the Raider QBs did manage to get a ball away it was usually a hurried toss with a couple of Trojans breathing on them.
Northwest’s defense was so dominant that the Trojans might have won 42-0 had not South’s own defense been nearly as good.
South held Northwest’s high-powered passing game, featuring quarterback Ryan Woodham, to 79 yards. Woodham came in completing 70 percent of his tosses. He was held to 7-for-19. South got several sacks from Jay Phillips, a couple of bat-downs by Randy Rigsby and some tough tackling by Brad Lanning, Matt Shoemaker and Jimmy Propst.
It all went for naught.
Northwest scored late in the first quarter after its defense pinned South deep, forced a punt and handed the offense the ball at the South 46. It took 12 plays and a Woodham sneak for a fourth-down conversion, but eventually the Trojans punched in on Josh Mauney’s 1-yard dive. It stayed 6-0 when kicker Matt Crutchfield almost did a header on the wet field on his PAT attempt.
Then, South had three golden chances to score, but came up empty.
After the Trojan touchdown, South got all three of its first downs in rapid succession, moving efficiently to the Northwest 25. But on third-and-8, Brandon Smith picked off a Childers pass.
“A backbreaker,” said Vanhoy.
Moments later, though, Raider DBKevin Foy picked up a fumble and hauled it down to the Trojan 5. But on second-and-goal at the 4, South suffered a devastating procedure penalty. That forced the Raiders to pass and Cook was sacked twice in a row. Now, it was fourth-and-goal from the 30 and Robby Basinger missed a 47-yard field goal by inches.
“That sequence was a microcosm of the whole game,” said Vanhoy. “That was the story of the night. You go from first-and-goal at the 5 to trying a 47-yarder.”
The situation was virtually repeated a few minutes later. This time, Dale Rice intercepted Woodham and returned to the Trojan 33. Three hurried incompletions later, Basinger missed from 50 yards.
“Two field goals and they miss by a combined nine inches, maybe,” said Vanhoy. “Robby’s got a great leg and he’ll make the next two, I know it. You know, if he does make those field goals, then we can go to the half and say, ‘We haven’t done anything on offense guys, but we’re still tied up.’ Instead, the guys just didn’t feel good about themselves.”
It showed. If anything, Northwest was even tougher in the second half. South went 3-and-out repeatedly and the Trojans kept the clock and the chains moving with workhorse back Shelton Roseboro, who churned out 132 yards.
Woodham finally hit a leaping Joe Godwin for a 22-yard touchdown to seal the game with 6:37 remaining.
“It was a tough night,” said Vanhoy. “We got beat at the line of scrimmage and we’re in trouble anytime that happens.”
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