BY BRET STRELOW
SALISBURY POST

KANNAPOLIS — Ron Massey put his faith in the state Court of Appeals and rendered a decision of his own.

As expected, the court overturned a prior ruling, and Massey didn’t have to change a thing.

A.L. Brown, scheduled at one point to face South Point, never really wavered in its preparation for the potent Asheville offense, and it showed.

The Wonders bent but didn’t break on Friday night, keeping the Cougars off the scoreboard when it mattered in a 21-14 victory in the first round of the state 3A playoffs.

Asheville put A.L. Brown (10-2) on its heels with a number of trick plays, but the defense stood strong in the fourth quarter and stopped the Cougars on a fourth-and-6 play from the Wonder 20 with 1:55 left.

“We knew East Lincoln would probably win the appeal, so we just practiced for Asheville basically every day of last week and this week,” junior defender Josh Reeves said. “We practiced for South Point about two times, but it was Asheville all the way through.”

Reeves came up with the biggest play of the game for the Wonders, stopping Michael Byrd short of the first-down marker with less than two minutes to play.

The Cougars, trailing 21-14, got possession at their own 37 with 7:12 left and marched 33 yards in nine plays, all runs.

Asheville (6-5) decided to put it in the air on fourth down, though, and quarterback Jordan Phillips threw a screen pass in the middle of the field to Byrd. Byrd ran right but couldn’t get away from Reeves, who was later joined by a slew of Wonders to make the stop at the 18, four yards short of the marker.

A.L. Brown ran off the final 1:55 with three running plays, the second a 12-yard gain that sealed the deal.

“I thought they were going to come out with a halfback pass or something like that,” Reeves said. “I knew what the change was, and I was determined not to let him get past me. I held him up until our defense got there.”

Asheville outgained A.L. Brown 305 to 242 in total yards, but 186 of those came on four creative calls by Cougar coach Danny Wilkins.

Trailing 7-0, Asheville set up its first touchdown with a 51-yard halfback pass from Byrd to Michael Hines with less than four minutes left in the first quarter.

Later, with the Cougars behind 21-7 near the end of the first half, offensive guard Jonathan Haynes rushed 41 yards down the right sideline down to the Wonder 5 on a fumble-rooskie play, although a hold at the 10 pushed the ball back to the 20-yard line. Cougar kicker Clay Foster missed a 23-yard field goal to end the half.

Asheville also gained 28 yards on a hook and lateral play on its first drive of the second half but failed to score. The Cougars finally reaped the full benefit of its trickery late in the third quarter.

Asheville huddled up on offense with only 10 players instead of 11 facing a second-and-7 from its own 29. As a Cougar came into the huddle late, wide receiver Brandon Freeman ran like he was going off the field. But he stayed out wide right and was uncovered at the 50, where he caught Phillips’ pass and outran Danyell Brown for a 71-yard score to cut A.L. Brown’s lead to 21-14.

“We added a lot of wrinkles to try to give us a chance,” Wilkins said. “We were outnumbered in size and speed.

“Their speed defensively was a factor all night for us.”

The defense, which played well early, made the lead hold up. A.L. Brown forced Asheville into three-and-outs on three of the Cougars’ first four series, and the Wonders’ held bruising fullback Tyrus Knox to 63 yards on 18 carries.

“Every week we just tried to get better and better,” said defensive back Robert Clark, who was in on the big fourth-down tackle. “We’ve been getting better every week, and now we’re at that level, but there’s always room for improvement.”

The A.L. Brown offense didn’t make much noise in the second half, but it didn’t have to.

The Wonders got on the scoreboard first on Chris Carter’s 21-yard touchdown run with 8:28 left in the first quarter.

Carter wasn’t the Wonders' standout runner on Friday, though.

Maurice Edwards was.

Edwards rushed 12 times for 94 yards, including a 49-yard scamper to give A.L. Brown a 14-7 lead with 38 seconds left in the first quarter.

Edwards, who got some advice before the touchdown run from former Wonder star Nick Maddox, raced up the middle, then bounced outside and shook out of a tackle by Foster at the 4 to get into the end zone.

Maddox, who was in town for Thanksgiving break, went over and congratulated Edwards after the score.

“Before I scored, the first time I ran that play I got yards, and he was like, ‘If you bounce it, that corner is going to crack in, therefore you’ll have the whole sideline to yourself,’ ” Edwards said. “That’s what I did the second time I got it.”

The Wonders scored one more time, with Drew Maher hitting Aundrae “Touche” Allison for a touchdown on a flanker screen from the Cougar 13 with 4:53 left in the first half.

Maher finished 6-of-11 passing for 61 yards, and Allison had five catches for 46 yards, including 38 after the catch.

“They swarmed to the ball, and I was just basically trying to make them miss,” Allison said.

Said Maher, “I just saw he had man-to-man coverage out there, so I just slung it to him, and he’s so athletic he did the rest.”

Allison and the Wonders offense didn’t have many of those opportunities in the second half, gaining only 39 total yards.

The defense didn’t mind grabbing the headlines for once.

“We bowed our backs down there on the last drive and the drive before that, so you have to give a lot of credit to our defense,” Massey said.

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NOTES: The Wonders, seeded fifth, travel to Franklin for next week’s second-round game. Franklin, led by former Duke coach Fred Goldsmith, defeated Eastern Randolph

13-10. ... Carter finished with nine carries for 61 yards and had one catch for 15 yards. ... Edwards started the second half at quarterback and played one series, which lasted six plays. Edwards ran three times for 14 yards on the drive and finished with his second-most productive rushing night of the season. “They’re sleeping on me, so that’s good,” he said. ... When Byrd sacked Maher for a 7-yard loss midway through the fourth quarter, it was only the fifth sack the Wonders had given up all season. ... Asheville, acting more like a college than a high school, came equipped with eight pages of Cougar Game Notes for the media’s disposal.

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Contact Bret Strelow at 704-797-4258 or bstrelow@salisburypost.com .