SPENCER— The plays started innocently enough, one after the other.
North Rowan quarterback Alfonzo Miller didn’t even drop back the way he usually does when firing to his receivers in the flat. Perhaps he was too anxious, but it’s hard to blame him.
The Cavaliers turned on the jets Friday night against East Rowan, turning insignificant-looking plays into big gainers. The same scenario happened early and often, leading to an easy 44-14 Cav victory.
“It’s going to be like that a lot of games,”North senior Lamar Geter said. “We’ve got receivers who can break one any time, any place. Alfonzo sees it and he just throws it to us.”
Geter was one of three Miller favorites against East. Junior Tony Walker and sophomore Jeremiah Cauthen rounded out the practically impossible-to-catch trio.
North (3-1) scored touchdowns on its first five series, sparked by a common theme on every drive.
Miller took the snap from center and barely blinked before he turned right or left and fired a pass — sometimes so quickly that it was behind the receiver for a lateral.
Geter grabbed the first one, juked his defender and raced to a 19-yard gain. Four plays later, on third-and-22, senior tailback Thomas Mashore Jr. blasted through the middle and scored from 38 yards out for a 6-0 lead.
Walker got into the act on drive No. 2, again grabbing a pass at the line of scrimmage, stiff-arming his defender and racing 50 yards down the left sideline. East’s Matt Baker saved the touchdown, but only temporarily. A Miller QB sneak and completion to Geter for the two-point conversion made it 14-0.
“We were giving it our best shot,”said East senior running back and defensive end Jacob Moore. “That quarterback was fast. By the time he was off the ball, he’d gotten rid of it.”
The big play on North’s next scoring drive belonged to Geter, who took a lateral in the right flat and turned it into a 20-yard gain. Two plays later, Miller hit tight end James House from 4 yards out for a 22-0 advantage with 9:56 still left in the second quarter.
Following a Mustang touchdown, Geter and Walker did the dirty work on North’s ensuing drive. Geter gained 22 yards on a short pass into the left flat. On the next play, Walker lined up there, took the same pass and rambled 29 yards before Baker raced down the sideline to corral him. Less than a minute later, Mashore stood in the end zone again. His 7-yard score made it 30-6 heading into the half.
“These kids can just fly,”Cavaliers head coach Roger Secreast said. “We just out-ran everybody and the offensive line did a good job so we had time to throw.”
Miller used little of that time, though. Instead of the normal three-step drop he’d take before firing into the flat, he was taking one, eager to hit his speed merchants.
And even when the East defense crowded the line of scrimmage, the Cavs found a way to succeed. On the opening drive of the third quarter, Miller sent a long lateral out to Cauthen, who had just one defender to beat to the corner. Cauthen did, gaining 36 yards and setting up Miller’s acrobatic 2-yard touchdown run two plays later.
With 7:56 still to play in the third quarter, East trailed 38-6.
“We knew coming in how dangerous they were. It was just a matter of whether we could slow them down at all,”East head coach Tom Eanes said. “You can try to prepare and the kids can give an effort, but they’ve just got so many more athletes, it’s tough.”
And the one thing Eanes couldn’t give his players was speed.
“They’re very good at what they do,”Eanes said. “It’s so hard when they probably run 4.5s, 4.7s, 4.6s (in the 40-yard dash) and we run 5-flats.”
Secreast
Their kids played hard, but we just have better people than they have right now. East is very well coached, but they’re very young and just a little down right now. I’ve been in that same position before:good kids that play hard, they’re just a little bit over-matched.
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Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4287 or shanf@salisburypost.com
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