MT. ULLA — About the only way to describe West Rowan’s first half performance last night was “overwhelming.”
Coming off a bye week and welcoming back their star runner Daisean Reddick, the Falcons opened their conference season in dominating fashion, cruising past Northwest Cabarrus 38-7.
Returning from an ankle fracture suffered in game one of the season, Reddick ran for 115 yards and three touchdowns against the Trojans and said it felt good to be back.
“When I was running and cutting it felt good”, the senior speedster stated,” I was not going to let my team lose tonight.”
West (3-1, 1-0) was equally impressive with their defense and special teams as they limited the Trojans to under 200 yards offense and shut them out until late in the game. The Falcons also pounced on four NWC fumbles, and blocked two punts, one for a touchdown, all in the first half.
Northwest (3-1, 1-1) came in undefeated in the South Piedmont Conference but never got untracked against the Falcons.
“In the first half we just didn’t execute at all,” Trojan coach Rich Williams noted. “We were really bad offensively and I think we were worse on special teams. We played much better in the second half but you can’t wait until the second half to start playing.”
Actually the Trojans may want to wipe away all memories of their first half performance. The game started in a persistent rain shower but West ignored it and drove 57 yards on their first possession to lead 7-0. Reddick broke off tackle to score from 25 yards out.
After an exchange of fumbles, West drove 59 yards in nine plays and Reddick again carried it in from 15 yards for a 14-0 lead.
The second period opened with the Trojans fumbling a punt, recovered by Darius Williamson, and it only took West three plays to score again. Reddick went in from the two and they led 21-0.
Then things turned really bad for the Trojans the rest of the period. A Najee Tucker pick six was nullified by a roughing the passer flag but West still notched a 27 yard field goal by Zack Russell for a 24-0 lead.
The Falcon’s special teams then took control as they blocked two punts in the final four minutes of the half, scoring as a result of both. Raykwon Torrence got the first one which allowed Keyows Weeks to score from the three. Tucker then blocked the second one and Kevin Galliard scooped it up at the 10 and ran it in. The lead was 38-0 and the game was essentially over.
“Our first half was awesome,” Coach Scott Young stated,”We controlled field position and our defense really played well and kind of took them out of their game plan early.”
The Trojans did play a better second half behind the running of Armon Dooley (83 yards) and the passing of Brandon White. They finally got on the board with just four minutes left as White hit JD Murray for a 22 yard TD strike.