GRANITE QUARRY— The overwhelming silence of the East Rowan locker room mixed with
disheartened tears to tell the story of Friday’s night game.An incredible effort from the defensive
unit, wasted. A brilliant special teams play, wasted. And all the playoff hopes in the
world washed away on a hard-hitting Senior Night.
“We were just looking forward
to going to the playoffs,”senior defensive lineman Henry Faavesi said after his
Mustangs suffered a 17-7 defeat. “We knew we had to go out there and stop them if we
wanted to go.”
East managed to stop a quick and
talented Concord attack at nearly every turn but, as in last week’s 20-0 loss to
mighty Kannapolis, it wouldn’t be enough.
Concord’s defense limited the
Mustangs to 74 yards of total offense, including 1 yard of net rushing in the first 24
minutes. The Spiders then intercepted three passes in the second half to seal the win and
send the Mustangs home for the year after next Friday’s finale against Sun Valley.
The Spiders improved to 7-3
overall and 6-1 in the 3A South Piedmont Conference. East, previously in the running for
the league’s third playoff spot, fell to 3-4 in conference and 5-5 overall.
The warning signs of East’s
impending doom came early. On the first offensive series, Concord jumped offsides and gave
the Mustangs a first-and-5. Three plays and 4 yards later, Jordan Shinn launched his first
of four punts.
The Spiders promptly marched 67
yards on seven plays, scoring on quarterback Jamel Jackson’s 9-yard run on a
fourth-down play. West’s defense suffered one last letdown in the game when Jackson
escaped for a 24-yard gain to the 1-yard line, setting up his sneak for a 14-0 edge at the
8-minute mark of the second quarter.
“We knew the less time the
defense was on the field was more time the offense had to score,”Faavesi said.
“The defense played a great game except for a few big plays. Take away the big plays
and they got nothing.”
That’s exactly what East had
on the scoreboard, though — for a few seconds, at least. On the ensuing kickoff,
Henry’s brother Chris grabbed the ball at the 19-yard line and raced up the middle,
around the kicker and down the sideline for a touchdown that erased all fears of a Concord
blowout.
“I was looking for Calvin
(Hayes Jr. on a reverse) and I couldn’t find him. I saw a big hole and I took
off,”Chris Faavesi said. “After that the team started to play a little bit
better.”
The defense certainly did.
The yards Mack Johnson, Lawrence
Harris and Jackson had been gaining suddenly vanished in a sea of Mustang red. The Faavesi
brothers teamed with seniors Danny Misenheimer,Thomas Hendrickson and Casey Loining to
keep the lead at 14-7 going into halftime.
“That was great, we
weren’t moving the football and we were only a touchdown down,” East head coach
Jeff Safrit said. “I said at halftime that we hadn’t played that good and we
were right in the game.”
Concord punted on three of its
first four possessions of the second half. On the fourth series that started onEast’s
21-yard line, Concord surrendered the ball on four downs after gaining 2 yards.
“The defense did pretty
good,”Chris Faavesi said. “The offense couldn’t move the ball any. I
thought the offense would get better, Coach gave us a little talk at halftime.”
No matter what Safrit and his
staff tried, nothing worked. The Mustangs lost yardage on reverses, got stuffed up the
middle, watched pass after pass fall incomplete. The third quarter ended without an East
first down, as the Mustangs ran just six plays for 9 yards in the 12-minute period.
East’s first possession of
the fourth quarter ended with a deep interception at midfield, but Concord lost 2 yards on
its ensuing series and punted. Finally, at the 7:23 mark of the fourth quarter,
East’s offense moved the ball. Drew Davis completed a 24-yard pass to Mark
Misenheimer. Hendrickson darted 12 yards up the middle for back-to-back first downs that
had East in Concord territory.
Spider coach E.Z. Smith called a
timeout to steady his defense, which then delivered the kill shot. Davis dropped back to
pass to Nick Lefko, who faked long and cut back toward the QB. So did safety Shane Mellor,
who picked off the pass and ran it back 26 yards to the East 34.
“That was a big play right
there,”Smith said. “We were struggling a little bit and then we got the
interception.”
East’s defense again tried to
hold but allowed a 16-yard gain to Harris on third-and-16. That set up Drew Walters’
36-yard field goal with 4:02 remaining, putting Concord ahead 17-7.
Another interception ended
East’s final possession and capped a tough night for the sophomore Davis, who
finished 5-for-19 for 48 yards and the three INTs. East’s leading rusher was
Hendrickson’s 23 yards on four carries.
“We just couldn’t move
the ball,”Safrit said. “I don’t have any answers.
“We’ve played like that
the last three weeks on defense. Three straight weeks we played with the same intensity on
defense. The bad thing is that we came out of it 1-2.”
And because East only managed a
20-12 win three weeks ago against Northwest Cabarrus, the Mustang season, great defense
and all, ends next week.
“We’ve been (to the
playoffs) the last three years, and as bad as we played early in the year they knew we
still had a chance make it,”Safrit said. “I feel bad for Danny and Thomas and
Henry. They’ve put in a lot of hard work. We’re not always blessed with the
greatest athletes in the world, but Iwouldn’t trade these kids for
their’s.”
n
NOTES: Concord battles for the SPC
championship next week at Kannapolis, the top-ranked 3A team in the state. … Harris
ended with 157 yards on 22 carries, while elusive QB Jackson had 76 rushing yards.
“Jackson’s one of the two, three best players in the conference and our goal was
not to let him beat us,”Safrit said. “Harris ran the ball hard too.” …
After committing six penalties for 55 yards in the first half, Concord wasn’t flagged
in the second. |
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