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SPENCER — It’s not hard to figure out where North Rowan’s second-round 2A state playoff game with the West Wilkes Blackhawks will be decided.
The verdict will rendered upfront where an up-to-this-point irresistible force (West’s offensive line) will crash into what has to date been an immovable object (North’s massive defensive front four).
“It should be a pretty good matchup for us,” said North coach Roger Secreast. “A fun matchup with our defense against their offense.”
Friday’s game in the hamlet of Miller’s Creek begins at 7:30 p.m. By 7:45 or so, we should know if second-seeded West’s weightlifters can move the 1,100 pounds of muscle, meat and meanness that Cavalier crushers Kenny Brown, Aaron Young, Junior Farmer and Marcus Hayes bring to the table.
“West Wilkes has physically dominated all the teams they’ve played,” said Secreast, who has recorded nine playoff wins at North. “Hopefully, we’ll be a little harder to dominate.”
Mountain Valley Conference champion West (11-1) has two 1,000-yard backs in fullback Matt Staley and halfback Dustin Greene, who plow behind that imposing offensive line.
“They’re a big running team. They will throw some, but they don’t like to,” said Secreast. “So far no one’s been able to make them throw it. Maybe we can.”
Probably the Cavs (10-2) can.
Sixth-seeded North’s first-round opponent, Pisgah, was very much a running team. But the Cavs’ defensive front quickly transformed the Black Bears into an air show.
Picture West, champions of the Mountain Valley Conference, as comparable to the very best Ledford and East Davidson teams that North’s seen over the past five years.
“They’re large and physically very strong,” said Secreast. “They do remind us of some of those good East Davidson teams, except West Wilkes has better running backs. West Wilkes is a good football team. You don’t win 11 games unless you’re good.”
West was quite good last week. It hardly broke a sweat in destroying Charlotte Catholic 52-0.
“They were just too strong for us,” said Catholic coach Jim Oddo.
Of course, comparing the athletes that Secreast has to Catholic’s is comparing peaches and pumpkins.
“North’s got a roster full of athletes,” said Blackhawk coach Wayne Shepherd. “They’re big and they’re fast. Athlete for athlete, we can’t match up.
“To win, we’ll have to be consistent, control the flow of the game and not give North any opportunities to use their speed in space.”
Shepherd said his team beat West Caldwell and North Surry this season, two teams known for having fine athletes.
He also noted that his guys opened last season by destroying 1A power Albemarle 42-8. Albemarle is a team that approximates the speed, if not the size, of the Cavs.
West is not the perennial playoff participant that North is. In fact, the Blackhawks had done little for a long time until Shepherd took over in 1997. He got his guys to buy into a summer weight program, and that’s paid dividends.
West was 3-8 in 1999, but jumped to nine wins last season and claimed its first conference title since 1984. Shepherd was the North Carolina Prep Football News 2A coach of the year for engineering that turnaround.
“We got a group in here that wasn’t satisfied with being mediocre,” said Shepherd. “You’re not gonna see a lot of our kids running 4.5s, but they are hard-nosed, hard-working kids.”
This year, the Blackhawks, who now have a host of three-year starters, haven’t lost since Aug. 31 when they were upset by Mount Airy.
“Looking back, we shouldn’t have lost to them,” said Shepherd. “That’s just one we’ll have to swallow.”
West Wilkes is the biggest show in town in Miller’s Creek. It’s drawing big starved-for-a-winner crowds to a stadium where a dozen or so motorcyclists lead the team from the locker room to the field.
“They are a little different,” Secreast said. “I’ve seen ’em on TV.”
Of course, the Cavs have a Harley of their own in record-setting quarterback Alfonzo Miller, who will likely play some safety and may even return punts tonight.
Miller, who has accounted for 3,306 yards on passes and rushes didn’t have a particularly good game by his standards last week, but Secreast blames himself. He says he got too conservative once the Cavs built a 24-0 lead. They ended up barely surviving a turnover-plagued effort.
“When’s the last time we only threw it 17 times?” he asked. “Passing, that’s what we do and we should’ve stayed with it. The book says run the clock when you’re ahead 24-0, but everyone knows we threw the book out here a long time ago. Running the ball seemed like the right idea, it wasn’t.”
Secreast would like to be back at the Spencer “Airport” Friday, but says going on the road’s no big deal to his players.
“They’ll be more relaxed than the coaches,” he said. “They’ve been in dogfights.”
This group of Cavs have had some huge wins away from Eagle Stadium (they won at A.L. Brown this year and at Shelby in last season’s playoffs), but both losses this season were on the road. At South Rowan on opening night and at Ledford on Oct. 26.
“I still don’t think we’ve hit our peak yet,” said Secreast. “But we’re going to need to hit it tonight. It should be interesting.”
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NOTES:The Cavs are relatively healthy, although Ronald Foxx and Bobby Lee have sore shoulders and starting linebacker Jonathan Lomax has a partially torn achilles. All will play... Watch West O-lineman Denny Minton (No. 77). He had 29 pancake blocks last season. ... West should have an edge in the kicking game. Placekicker Zach Oller booted eight field goals last season. ... West two-way player Jason Trivette scored on a reception, an interception and a fumble return against Catholic.
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Directions: Shepherd says you can take I-77 to Highway 421. Go north on 421 toward Jefferson through the Wilkesboros, past K-Mart and Wal-Mart. .. Go to the stoplight at the intersection with Highway 16 North. Turn right at that stoplight. At the next stoplight take a left. The school is a mile on the right. ... Secreast said he figures it’s 90 minutes by car, maybe 2 hours, 15 minutes by activity bus.
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Contact Mike London at 704-797-4259 or mlondon@salisburypost.com
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