LANDIS — Brad Lanning provided the first clue when he turned to the crowd late in the first half and pointed at the two thin, blue streaks on top of his red and black helmet.
The fact became crystal clear once McDowell lined up to run a first-down play out of its unique punt formation.
Nothing else would work for the Titan offense.
South Rowan came out strong on defense and kept it up throughout Friday night’s game, shutting down the Titans 27-8 in the first round of the state 4A playoffs.
By the time the Raiders led 21-0 early in the fourth quarter, the McDowell offense had gained a total of 121 yards.
The Titans even tried to spark its offense by running four consecutive offensive plays with their punter on the field, but it was too late.
The Raiders were the team advancing to next week’s second game against No. 14 seed North Mecklenburg, which will take place at South Rowan.
“All we heard was they’re mountain boys and how much bigger and stronger they are, that we were underdogs,”Lanning said. “We had to come out here and make some licks.”
Lanning got the defense fired up early, then dabbled in some special teams magic.
On McDowell’s sixth play from scrimmage, 1,000-yard back Matt Reel took a sweep to the left and ran for a yard to the Titan 17, where Lanning hit him head on — literally, he has the marks to prove it.
Reel did finish the night with 12 carries for 76 yards, but 55 of them came on his first carry of the second half.
“They said he runs like Ben Hampton and a couple of other hard runners like at Davie,” linebacker and running back Jay Phillips said. “We really wanted to shut him down, shut the whole offense down. We wanted to give them nothing, give them no room to breath.”
Lanning’s big hit set the tone defensively, and he helped out the offense with a 56-yard punt return for a touchdown with 5:01 left in the second quarter.
Lanning hauled in the punt and raced straight up the field before cutting left at the McDowell 35. He avoided the outstretched arm of a Titan defender at the 5 and waltzed in to put South on the board first.
“I was just looking for a hole, and I saw it, so I got ghost,” Lanning said.
Got ghost?
“Gone, you couldn’t see me,” Lanning replied.
The Raider offense put up two more touchdowns before McDowell got desperate enough to briefly abandon its own regular offense.
Ricky Childers scored on a 1-yard run 36 seconds before the half to give South a two-TD lead, and Phillips sprinted 21 yards on the first play of the fourth quarter for another touchdown. Ben Wooten’s point after put South ahead 21-0 with 11:54 left.
Phillips led the Raider offense with 62 yards on 11 carries. Quarterback Andrew Morgan had nine carries for 54 yards, but it could have been a lot more.
With the Raiders leading
7-0 and owning possession at the McDowell 35 late in the first half, Morgan faked a handoff to Ted Thomas and ran around left end. Morgan got free and had one Titan defender left at the 15 to beat.
The only problem was that the whistle had blown several seconds earlier.
Officials thought Thomas had the ball and called the play dead once he went down. At the point, Morgan was at the 35, where the officials marked the ball.
South scored anyway four plays later.
“Morgan quote.”
McDowell got its only touchdown on a 6-yard run by Reel with 6:55 left in the contest. It got in position thanks to quarterback — or upman — Justin Dalton.
Facing a fourth-and-15 at their own 42, the Titans lined up to punt and ran a successful fake for the second time of the night. With three receivers to the left and right and three men on the line, that left Dalton and punter Nick MacKinnon in the backfield. Dalton took the snap and completed a 16-yard pass to Carlos Swepson.
McDowell ran its next three plays out of the same formation and had gains of 10 and 4 yards before a fumbled snap resulted in a 6-yard loss.
South’s players had seen the Titans run out of the formation on fourth down on film, but not on first, second or third.
“That was goofy, I didn’t know what was going on,”Phillips said. “We had to adjust, and we did.”
The Titans went to the I-formation on fourth-and-13, and Turner Kincaid hauled in a pass at the 1 that was tipped by Childers at the 5 to set up McDowell’s only score.
“We depend on our defense to carry us, I’ll make no bones about that,” South coach Rick Vanhoy said.
Childers intercepted a pass in the second quarter, but he could learn a thing or two from teammates Zach Overcash and Anthony Rhyne on what to do after possession has changed.
Overcash, a 220-pound defensive lineman, sealed the win with an interception — his third of the year — with less than five minutes left.
Overcash picked off Dalton at the South 29 and had a clear path to the end zone.
“Goalline,” he said. “All I saw was goalline.”
Overcash chugged down the right sideline along side Rhyne, who tried keep away any oncoming McDowell players.
Rhyne soon realized he wouldn’t be able to guide Overcash to the end zone, so he started yelling at the 50 for his teammate to pitch him the ball.
Overcash finally consented at the 35, and Rhyne ran for 28 more yards before getting tackled at the 7. Phillips added on the final TD of the night three plays later.
“I’m too slow,” Overcash said. “I was going to have to pitch that ball and turn and look to block.”
Overcash blocked about as well as Rhyne had — Rhyne got caught from behind.
Said Rhyne, “I ran out of breath from screaming at him.”
Minutes later, South’s players began to celebrate the school’s first playoff triumph since 1983, when the Raiders won three straight games in the 3A Division II playoffs.
They began to douse any assistant coach they could find, and by game’s end five separate puddles of icy water were present on the Raider sideline.
“It feels good,” Vanhoy said.
Contact Bret Strelow at 704-797-4258 or bstrelow@salisburypost.com
.
Today's News
