By Ronnie Gallagher
rgallagher@salisburypost.comIt was a Mutt & Jeff scene.
Standing side by side on the Salisbury defensive line, staring at the Providence Grove offense, were Kiontae Rankin and Chris Bruce.
Rankin stands 6-foot-4, 420 pounds. Bruce is 5-8, 195.
“Kiontae’s a great player,” Bruce said a few days after the Hornets finished the regular season with a 64-7 win. “Being on the same line with him, to me, is an honor. You’ve got to be brave to be down there with the big boys.”
You know what brave is?
It’s playing not only the defensive line, but linebacker and the Hornet position. Bruce, a junior, has done just that for coach Joe Pinyan.
“He is helping to create depth,” Pinyan said. “He had a big game against Providence Grove. He did a lot of things well.”
Bruce finished the game with seven tackles, five assists and two hits for losses.
Bruce said he was just one of many Hornets who came into the game totally focused. Salisbury had to forfeit four games earlier in the week due to an ineligible player, knocking a 11-0 record down to 7-4 entering Friday.
“Our mindset was that this was a statement game,” Bruce said. “The four forfeits hurt us. The only thing we could do was prove to everyone that we’re still a great football team.”
Bruce spent most of Friday night at the Hornet position (part linebacker, part defensive back). And he had his moments.
“There was one play where the quarterback threw up the middle,” he remembered. “I had a break on the ball. I almost had an interception.”
And why didn’t he?
“My hands weren’t working,” Bruce said with a laugh.
Maybe not, but everything else was.
And it didn’t go unnoticed by his head coach.
“Chris gave us a really good game against one of the more steady quarterbacks in our conference,” Pinyan said. “We’ve asked him to do more than we probably should. He has never complained.”
It seems strange to see a No. 2 on the defensive line. But Pinyan remembers facing Concord when he was an assistant at Mooresville.
He said E.Z. Smith always put his best athletes in single-digit jerseys.
“You’d see them get off the bus and see a single-digit and say, ‘Yep, that’s a player,’ ” Pinyan said. “Chris is deserving of a single-digit jersey.”
And he says there is some benefit to having a smaller player on the defensive line with Rankin.
“Yeah, when you line up beside (Rankin), you don’t look very big,” Pinyan chuckled. “Chris didn’t bat an eye. He just went at it. Sometimes you can get by with a quicker player down there.”
Bruce said he likes linebacker the best, but he knows he may play three spots defensively when the Hornets travel to Pisgah on Friday.
“I feel the way we played against Providence Grove, we should have the same intensity this Friday,” Bruce said. “If we have good practices this week, we’ll have a good shot at winning. We have great senior leadership on and off the field, so we want to win for them.”
Salisbury will walk into Pisgah’s mammoth stadium with the mindset of being one of North Carolina’s best teams, not a squad with four losses.
“Even though we’re 7-4 in the paper,” Bruce declared, “honestly, we’re 11-0.”