Not at Davie County. The War Eagles took some time off to rest, relax and get healthy before finding out Sunday they’ll entertain Gastonia Ashbrook on Friday night. Also slated for the off week — printing T-shirts.

“It came at a good time, we got our walking wounded healed up,”said Davie head coach Doug Illing in his CPC Championship shirt. “It was a great week off for us. We got a lot of work accomplished and we’re looking forward to playing someone in a different colored jersey.”

Illing’s squad swept its four Central Piedmont Conference foes for Davie’s first outright league title in 34 years. At 9-2 overall, the War Eagles earned the No. 5 seed in the N.C. High School Athletic Association’s western bracket and play host to No. 12 Ashbrook, from the ME-GA 7 Conference.

The Greenwave scrambled into the playoffs after an 0-5 start. Davie cruised to 5-0, dropped games to North and Central Davidson, then ran through the CPC before taking a break.

“It’s amazing how good you feel after a week off,”quarterback Drew Ridenhour said. “You want to play, but we had an easy week of practice and got our legs back under us. This was the best timing for a bye week. It’s not like not playing is going to slow us down.”

Injuries seem like Davie’s only foes this season. Ridenhour partially tore his ACL, but recovered to finish 70-for-145 passing for 1,106 yards. Tailback Ricky White, the area’s top rusher with 1,210 yards, recovered from his torn ACL last season and from an ankle injury sustained in Davie’s celebration after beating Mount Tabor.

A healthy White means trouble for Ashbrook — again. As a sophomore, White ran for 134 yards as the War Eagles earned a 22-15 win over the Greenwave.

“I’d like to air it out some, but with Ricky healthy we like to have a good, balanced offense,”Ridenhour said. “Ricky running the ball opens it up for me, me throwing the ball opens it up for Ricky. It makes it tougher on the defense.”

Ashbrook’s defense had to pick up the pieces from a team that finished 13-1 last season, falling 48-8 to Mount Tabor in the third round of the playoffs. No offensive starters returned from that team, though.

“We had a lot of inexperience and that caused us to be inconsistent,”said Greenwave head coach Bill Eccles, in his 12th season as head coach. “We couldn’t control the ball very much and that put a lot of pressure on the defense.

“Things looked bleak there for a while.”

The good news for Eccles was that some of his best players helped the defense stand its ground. Linebackers Boomer Danner and Ricky Rainey teamed with linemen Sky Neely and Markee Littlejohn to hold North Mecklenberg in a 10-9 Ashbrook win.

That was the first of five wins in six weeks behind junior quarterback Andre Bynum and freshman tailback Oreon Mayfield, who gained 800 yards this season.

“Their record does not reveal how good a team they are,”Illing said. “They don’t turn it over, they drive it down the field. They make you beat them. It’s going to be who makes the fewest mistakes and takes advantage of opportunities.

“They’re playing with a lot of momentum now. A lot of their trouble was getting their players used to playing Friday nights, and they’re playing well now. We can’t look past them.”

But Davie can rest well knowing that — well — the War Eagles rested while Ashbrook clawed its way into the playoffs last week. With a rare Friday night off, many Davie players headed to South Rowan’s game against Mount Tabor to see if the Raiders would join them in the playoffs. They did, and Davie enjoyed it.

“Us and South Rowan were supposed to finish last in the conference we came out and won it,”linebacker Zeke Earle said. “I’m glad the Winston schools aren’t going. We’ll get a little respect next year, maybe.”