By David Shaw
dshaw@salisburypost.com
KANNAPOLIS — South Rowan failed to earn its first victory of the season Friday night, but its legion of fans can remove those paper bags from their heads.
The Raiders’ 26-21 defeat at Northwest Cabarrus made for bad art but terrific entertainment. And after a couple of blowout losses, this game was genuinely worth watching.
“We’ve been waiting to see some spark,” coach Jason Rollins said after South’s fourth-quarter comeback fell short. “In the second half, we finally saw it. That was exciting — to see that turnaround, that switch — especially defensively.”
South (0-3) yielded only 108 yards in the second half and had a shot at winning until Northwest (1-1) recovered on onsides kick with 10 seconds remaining. It rallied from a 26-7 deficit on a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown passes by quarterback Nathan Lambert.
“Every loss is a bad one, but this had a positive feeling to it,” said Lambert, who threw for 218 yards and ran for a third-period score. “We played a good game. We felt like we could have and should have won it.”
Emotions were hard to hide during South post-game pep talk. A number of Raiders fought back tears as Rollins both praised and criticized their performance.
“We were better tonight,” sophomore defensive end Christian Neal said. “Much better. We all fought our hearts out. We just came back a little too late.”
Winning coach Rich Williams sounded relieved after Northwest captured its first victory. “We got a little tired and a little banged up in the second half,” he said. “And really had to hold them off at the end of the game. Sometimes that makes you a better team.”
The Trojans were a far better team for most of the first three quarters. Their defense limited South to 66 yards in the first half, 19 on the ground. The Raiders were 0-for-7 on third-down conversions and 0-for-4 on fourth-down attempts in the openeing two periods. In the third period they reached the Northwest 5-yard line, only to lose the ball on a fumble.
“It happens,” Lambert said. “We’ve just got to execute better. “You take away the mistakes, the penalties, the flags on fourth-and-5 and maybe it turns out different.”
Lambert rallied South with two scoring drives in the last six minutes. The first came after the Raiders took possession on the Northwest 27 following a botched punt attempt with 6:28 to play. On second down from the 24 he spiralled a beautiful TD pass to Tvadis Wesley, who outjumped a defender in the end zone and made a highlight-reel grab.
After forcing a punt, South’s final possession began at its own 25-yard line with 2:20 remaining. Lambert fired a 14-yard completion to Dominique Garlin for a first down, then connected with sticky-fingered wideout Josh Medlin five receptions, 124 yards) for a 22-yard gain on fourth-and-4. The clock was down to 34.4 seconds remaining when Lambert scampered 19 yards and bulled his way out of bounds at the Northwest 14.
“Everything was clicking for us,” Lambert said. “We were moving the ball, making good decisions. We came out and battled.”
Three incompletions later, Medlin hauled in an over-the-middle touchdown pass on fourth down. Abel Betancourt’s extra point narrowed the deficit to five points with 14.3 seconds to go — but that’s where the rally stalled.
“You can look at it a lot of ways,” Rollins said afterward. “We were shaky in the early going, but we won the second half. If you put anything in the paper, write that both sides of the ball stepped it up in the second half. No one quit. Our team took a step forward tonight.”