WINSTON-SALEM ó The West Rowan defensive backs heard it all week prior to entering BB&T Field on Saturday. They were:
The weak link.
The least experienced.
The ones who will be exploited by Shrine Bowl quarterback Brett Mooring.
The ones who will take the blame when 15-0 West Craven beats the Falcons for the 3A state championship.
The defensive backs’ reply?
Exploit this.
A.J. Little walked off the field with a plaque declaring him the defensive player of the game, but if he could, he’d have taken a hammer and chisel and chipped off a little piece to share with Austin Greenwood, Marco Gupton, Trey Mashore, Dominique Noble … I could go on.
And on. And on.
“You can’t name a player who went on that field who didn’t contribute,” defensive coordinator David Hunt said.
The 35-7 thrashing of West Craven was a statement. Don’t try to pick on any part of the West Rowan defense.
“We watched film and looked for weaknesses,” West Craven head coach Clay Jordan said in the postgame press conference. “We couldn’t find any.”
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Maybe Jordan was being nice. When a team is 15-0 like his, and you have a husky, accurate 6-foot-4 slinger like Mooring at quarterback, why worry? When it comes to passing, West Craven’s strengths can usually win out over any defense.
Coming in, Mooring’s numbers were Marino-like and his favorite receiver, Erik Highsmith, a 6-2 phenom headed for North Carolina, seemed unstoppable. Also, Mooring had thrown just eight interceptions in 15 games.
“He now has 13 in 16 games,” Hunt was quick to point out.
First, it was Greenwood, who came up with the initial pick on West Craven’s opening possession.
OK, the Eagles fans figured, everybody makes mistakes.
Then, Little, all 5-8 of him, picked one off.
OK, the Eagles fans shrugged, the little guy got lucky.
Then, linebacker Kam Finchum intercepted a pass.
Hmm, 13 minutes of play and Mooring had been picked off three times? What the heck’s going on?
“They had a lot of speed,” Mooring said after the game. “They were well-coached and they played a good game.”
By halftime, Mooring had an unheard-of 72 passing yards on 10 completions. Highsmith had two catches for a paltry 12 yards. Unheard of, too.
And their team was losing 21-0.
“We gave (Mooring) looks he hadn’t seen before,” Hunt explained. “We were playing a combination man and zone. He got a little confused. And give credit to the guys up front. We had only two sacks but they pressured him and made him change his reads.”
Surely, West Craven would make adjustments. Highsmith is used to making a zillion catches per game. He had Little, who was much shorter, on him.
So in the first minute of the third quarter, Mooring looked for his buddy, the guy they call “Mookie.”
Little intercepted.
“I was just doing my job,” Little said humbly.
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Little has always been a man of few words so Greenwood talked for him.
“A.J. played out of his shoes,” Greenwood said. “How crazy he played, he deserves the award.”
That’s high praise coming from Greenwood. He made the big plays against Carver two weeks ago. He made the big plays against South Point last week. And he continued his fantasy football world yesterday. Lost among all the interceptions was when he stripped Bobby Cox at the goal line when the Eagles could have tied the game at 7.
Mashore recovered.
“They had taken that drive a long way so that really tore them apart,” Greenwood said.
Believe it or not, the Falcon DBs weren’t through. With the score 21-0, sophomore Dominique Noble swiped the last of five interceptions at his goal line. West eventually scored off the turnover and it was O-V-E-R.
“I could tell he was a good quarterback,” Greenwood said of Mooring. “Maybe he just had a bad day.”
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Or maybe, just maybe, the West Rowan secondary is a lot better than anyone gave it credit for.
“It was motivation,” Gupton said of the detractors. “When Austin intercepted that first pass, it gave us a boost of confidence.”
Defensive backs coach Tim Dixon kept the confidence up as his kids came off the field. Forget Gupton’s bad knee. It’s a wonder they all didn’t have concussions from the happy pounding they took from Dixon each and every time they drew near.
“Talk about crazy,” Gupton laughed. “Coach Dixon has a passion for the game.”
And it showed even in the aftermath.
“They said we couldn’t cover anybody,” Dixon announced among the hoopla. “I guess we proved ’em wrong.”
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Contact Ronnie Gallagher at 704-797-4287 or rgallagher@salisburypost.com.