MOUNT ULLA — West Rowan’s offense exploded again here Friday night and the
Falcons are off to a 2-0 start.Justin Davis’ Rowan County record 100-yard kickoff return and Jared
Barnette’s 200-yard passing night were highlights as West scored its biggest victory
ever over county rival South Rowan, 49-12.
Davis, a senior wide receiver, set
his county record with a 100-yard kickoff return for West’s sixth touchdown seconds
after an 87-yard kickoff return by Keith Garrett of the Raiders. Davis caught the football
at his own 2-yard line, but the momentum of the kick sent him a yard past the goal line.
He then ran the length of the field for the TD.
“I wasn’t exactly sure
how long it was,” said Davis. “I just kept running, and I got tired about the
10-yard line. I was just happy I got it.”
The Post has at least one 99-yard
kickoff return on record, by East Rowan’s Billy Porter in 1973 against North
Davidson.
It’s difficult to have a
100-yard return, because rules prohibit high school players from catching the ball in the
end zone and running it out. In Davis’ case, however, he fielded the ball at the 2,
then ran back into the end zone.
Davis wound up with 170 return
yards plus 44 yards on receptions from Barnette for 214 all-purpose yards.
Barnette had an accurate night,
completing nine of 13 for four touchdowns — two to wide receiver Scooter Sherrill and
one apiece to Davis and tight end Chris Mauriello.
Sherrill, the basketball star who
signed with North Carolina State earlier this week, scored on the game’s second
scrimmage play, taking a screen pass from Barnette, breaking three tackles and going 54
yards for a TD. He added a 50-yard TD reception from Barnette after a leaping catch in the
third period. Sherrill, playing football for the first time in three years, finished with
five catches for 146 yards.
Barnette, a junior starting for
the first season, hit Davis for 34 yards and Mauriello for 10 yards in the second quarter.
His passing paced West to a 28-0 lead.
“He threw the ball well
tonight,” said coach Young of Barnette. “We had a two-quarterback deal going
into this thing. We still do, because Ben does some things better than Barnette, but
Barnette does some things better than him. They are really doing a good job of both being
leaders, for the most part. I’m not upset with the play of either of them tonight. I
am upset with the interception Barnette threw (closing seconds of the first half), but I
think he played through that and made up for it. Overall, he played well, but we
can’t turn the ball over.”
Running back Scooter Dalton, a
senior transfer fromLexington, went 28 yards for his team’s fifth TD in the third
period. That score allowed the Falcons to break the old school mark of 30 points in the
rivalry with South.
It was 35-6 after Garrett’s
87-yard runback for the visitors, then Davis’ kickoff return and a 20-yard TD run by
Michael Ellison in the final seconds of the third period pushed the lead to 49-6.
Running back Ernie Wiggins scored
from 7 yards out for South in the final quarter to make it 49-12.
West, a 53-0 winner over Salisbury
in last week’s season opener, has now outscored its opposition 102-12.
“Believe it or not, we played
a whole lot better game this week than we did last week, but we’re still not
there,” said West’s Young. “There’s still room for improvement. In the
first half we had a number of untimely penalties and missed blocking assignments, and we
would get a big loss and our drive would stall. Especially, the first quarter, because we
really didn’t have any big, long drives, like we need to. We’ve got to start
keeping our defense off the field more by controlling the ball better.”
The Falcons’ defense limited
South to six first downs and 159 total yards. James Francis recovered two fumbles, and
Josh Drechsler, Kyle Isenhour and Brandon Bailey recovered one each for West. S.J.
Culbertson intercepted a pass and Eric Weimer partially blocked a punt.
South (0-2), which lost four
fumbles in its season-opening 28-7 loss to East Rowan, lost five more last night,
including one on an onside kickoff by West on the opening kickoff. The Raiders have
fumbled 15 times in two contests.
“I know they worked 10 or 15
minutes a day on it this week just holding onto the football after what happened last
week. Then we come up here and the same thing started happening to us again,” said
coach Rick Vanhoy of South. “I think concentration’s probably a big part of
it.”
Vanhoy said he was impressed with
West, which went only 3-8 last year.
“They’re pretty good.
The Dalton kid, the (running back Jonathan) Diggs kid and Sherrill, those are three
quality athletes. Of course, those defensive kids really fly around and get to the
football. They played real well. They gave us all we wanted,” he said. |
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