The prep football notebook …There are easier ways to gain respect than winning four football games
over a span of three seasons.
So it was no surprise Friday night
that when winless South Rowan went up against winless Salisbury, the Raiders thought
they’d have a decent chance of winning the game against the struggling Hornets, 4-32
now over the past four years.
But the bigger, deeper 4A squad
came out flat against the depleted 2A Hornets and led by just 14 points at halftime. The
lapses South suffered before picking up the pace on its way to the 31-0 win had nothing to
do with Salisbury, though.
“Last week we had to play
A.L. Brown and then Salisbury this week, and we had to keep that intensity,”Raider
tailback Ernie Wiggins said. “A.L. Brown is a big rivalry and Salisbury’s
not.”
Quick South runner Keith Garrett
agreed that South’s sloppy play wasn’t disrespect toward the Hornets, just a
case of a letdown after losing 53-31 a week ago to the Raiders’ biggest rival,
Kannapolis. While the South-Brown series takes place every year, the Hornets and Raiders
hadn’t played since 1972.
“It’s a tough situation.
In reality, this week is tough for us every year,”South head coach Rick Vanhoy said.
“The Kannapolis game is so big, everybody puts so much into it, the players, the
fans, the community, the next week is always hard.
“We showed it the first
couple days in practice and then picked it up,”Vanhoy added. “The offensive
success we had last week led to our letdown tonight. They thought if it worked last week
they could do anything.”
The statistics back up Vanhoy. The
last time South won a game the week after facing Kannapolis was 1994, a 20-13 win over
Mooresville after beating Kannapolis 14-6.
Vanhoy’s Raiders turn to
three halfbacks and three fullbacks for a vast chunk of the offense, which most of the
time leaves little action for the lonely pass catchers in the formation.
Tight end Daniel Pinyan made the
most of his chances Friday night, though. The 6-foot-1, 190-pound senior looked three
balls in from QB Tim Cook for 47 yards, showing soft, sure hands to help out on several
South scoring drives.
“We’re in the wishbone,
so when you get the chance to throw you have to catch it,”Pinyan said. “If they
throw it to us we have to catch it so they’ll throw it to us again.”
Pinyan certainly wouldn’t
mind more attention after catching his share of passes in 1998.
“He was a wide receiver last
year so he had a chance to catch a lot of balls,“Vanhoy said. “He’s done a
good job blocking and turned into a real good tight end for us.”
The lineup shuffling could
continue for the Hornets after the 31-0 loss to South Friday night.
Senior running back Demarcus
Davidson ran for only 18 yards on eight carries Friday, bringing his season total to 99
yards on 52 carries.
New starting quarterback Terry
Johnson also did some running and had some positive gains, but most of Salisbury’s
offensive production came from defensive stalwart Ken Drye, a 6-0, 183-pound junior.
After being involved in seemingly
every tackle through the first three quarters from his linebacker spot, Drye made an
appearance in the offensive backfield on the Hornets’ first possession of the fourth
quarter. He gained 18 yards on his first run, 11 yards on his next two carries and got 15
more on a draw play, giving him 44 for the game on four carries.
Daugherty said Drye could see more
time at the tailback slot, and despite all he work Drye does on defense, he’s all too
happy to shoulder some of the offensive burden as well.
“Once I go in, I’ll be
there,”Drye said. “It (rushing) didn’t bother me.”
Coach Jeff Safrit of East Rowan
expected quite a battle when his Mustangs faced Central Cabarrus in the South Piedmont
Conference opener Friday night, but the Vikings’ 432 total yards caught him by
surprise.
“They did some things that I
didn’t think they could do. They ran right at us (219 yards rushing), and they threw
some things that I thought we were defending, and we didn’t do a good job of
defending,” said Safrit after Central’s thrilling 31-28 win.
Quarterback Clayton Russell, who
went out for the season with a broken ankle in the game with East a year ago, completed 13
of 27 passes for 213 yards for the visitors. Russell threw for only one touchdown, but it
was a 66-yarder to wide receiver Michael Ricks for the score that put the Vikings ahead to
stay at 25-21 early in the fourth period.
“We gave up big plays. ... I
didn’t think we did a good job of defending their short stuff,”Safrit said.
“They didn’t beat us
with the long pass; they beat us with the short stuff.”
The 66-yard TD pass wasn’t a
long throw by Russell. He hit his receiver at the Central 45, then the speedy Ricks broke
into the clear for the remaining 55 yards.
Kannapolis’ two-headed
running back monster — senior Marcello Stanback and junior Eric Caldwell — is
getting the job done. And then some.
While they haven’t generated
quite the excitement that Nick Maddox did a year ago, they are generating comparable
yardage.
The duo has pounded for a combined
564 yards through the Wonders’ first three games of 1999 and has piled up 10 rushing
touchdowns. The pair is averaging 7.6 yards per carry.
In the Wonders’ first three
games in 1998, Maddox roared for 576 yards, nine rushing TDS and 10.5 yards per carry.
Caldwell has topped 100 yards in
each of the Wonders’ last two games and holds a narrow 291-273 edge in his friendly
yardage battle with Stanback.
“Stanback and Caldwell have
become a great combo for us,” said Hardin. “They’re starting to remind me
of a couple of years ago when we had both Nick and Traun Brown (another 1,000-yard rusher)
doing so well in the backfield.”
n
Ed Dupree and Mike London
contributed to this notebook. |
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