The prep football notebook …If Mario Sturdivant’s absence from Friday’s 52-14 loss to High
Point Central did anything for North Rowan, it helped coach Roger Secreast find next
year’s quarterback.
Graham Hosch, a junior wide
receiver, was thrust into the position because of a banged-up Sturdivant and he played
well in a first-time performance.
“I thought Graham did a good
job not to ever play quarterback,” Secreast said. “He’ll be ready for next
year. He’s just not quite ready this year.”
Hosch was relegated to short
throws but when he did fire downfield, the ball had zip. His two most impressive passes
were a 14-yarder to Eric Davis and a 16-yard toss to Dre Byrd.
He finished with 11 completions
and two other long passes were just out of the reach of Chris Phillips and Alfonzo Miller.
“A couple of passes were just
a foot or two over or we score,” Secreast said. “But we only practiced two days
and it rained Wednesday. So for two days of practice, I thought Graham did awfully
well.”
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PLAYOFF PICTURE: The loss to
Central didn’t damage anything for the Cavaliers except maybe their ego. Their
playoff run is still intact, despite two CCC losses.
The Central Carolina Conference
has three berths and it appears Central and Ledford have the first two places locked up.
That leaves North (2-2) and East Davidson (3-2) fighting for the last spot.
If the Cavs defeat North Stanly
next week and East Davidson on Nov. 5, they’re in.
“We’re in no different
shape than we were last week,” Secreast said. “We’ve got to beat North
Stanly and we’ve got to beat East Davidson.”
And the Cavs will try to
accomplish those feats with Sturdivant back at quarterback, this time throwing to Hosch.
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GONORTH: High Point Central seemed
to want North to advance. Afterward, several assistants were patting the Cavs, saying,
“Beat East Davidson. Beat East Davidson.”
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RESPECT: Which led Secreast to
have new-found respect for Central.
“We’ve heard things
about their sportsmanship,” he said. “After the game, I’ve never seen a
bunch of kids treat anybody better anywhere.
“Now, they’re a little
rowdy because they’re competitors. But we wish them all the luck they can have.”
After blitzing Piedmont for 38
points in the first half, it looked like one question remained for the second — how
long before the Falcons scored enough points to start a mercy-killing running clock?
But the winless Panthers held
their ground — sort of — in the 38-0 final.
West Rowan forced a quick punt to
open the second half and started driving. Scooter Dalton’s 22-yard run made it first
down at the Piedmont 42 and gained another first down on the next run before a holding
flag brought it back. A 5-yard gain on first-and-25 held up, but on Diggs’ next two
runs, flags came in, setting up an eventual third-and-32 that West fumbled away.
“I saw two of them and they
were good calls, we were holding them,”West head coach Scott Young said.
“Sometimes you get those things when you’re leading.”
The Falcons ended the third
quarter with 50 yards in penalties — and 75 in total offense. With only 25 yards in
the right direction, it’s no wonder they didn’t find the end zone. But that
didn’t matter.
“We did it at Harding, too,
it seemed like we had penalties on every play,”center Daniel Kluttz said.
“It’s different with this team this year. Last year we’d be in the huddle
jumping down everybody’s throats. This year we just say get it right, and that’s
more yards for us to run for.”
There was no doubt that the
biggest single play in Kannapolis’ 20-0 win over East was Marcus Rivens’ 65-yard
punt return for a touchdown.
Rivens’ play made it 14-0 and
put an East team playing without its most explosive player, Cal Hayes Jr., down by two
scores.
Rivens, a senior strong safety,
has made as many big plays as any Wonder over the past three years, and he’s quick to
tell you that among the most memorable games of his career were three absolute wars with
the Mustangs.
“I’ve got the utmost
respect for East,” said Rivens. “That’s a team that you know is always
going to come to play. No matter what the score is, you have to play your hardest against
them every play. I’ve never once seen them give up.”
There will be plenty of great
nights in the future for East Rowan’s sophomore quarterback Drew Davis who stars in
football, baseball and basketball.
But Friday night’s
five-interception game against Kannapolis might be as much adversity as the youngster will
ever have to experience.
Davis’ coach Jeff Safrit,
however, was delighted with the way Davis handled himself in the midst of a merciless
pounding from Wonder linemen.
Even when Davis took a
helmet-to-helmet hit on the sidelines from Kannapolis’ Justin Chambers, a 220-pound
senior, he didn’t complain or lose his cool.
When Davis got up after that hit,
he just stared at Chambers.
“He wanted to make sure he
remembered the number of that guy who hit him,” said Safrit.
Davie’s star running back
Ricky White was a key to the War Eagles’ thrilling 23-21 win over R.J. Reynolds on
Friday night.
White, who sat out the previous
week’s game against South Rowan trying to heal up, barreled for better than 150 yards
and a touchdown to keep the War Eagles’ offense in motion.
Unbelievably, however, White got
hurt once again.
Not when he was hit by a Demon,
but when his teammates jumped all over him during the victory celebration.
He was limping after the game, but
expect him to play this Friday when Davie takes on Mt. Tabor and goes for a perfect 4-0
CPC season.
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Steve Hanf and Mike London
contributed to this notebook. |
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