By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SPENCER — It looks like it’s going to be a productive play for the Anson County Bearcats.

The call is a bubble screen, and quarterback Luke Hyatt delivers a strike to an elusive receiver behind the line of scrimmage, with another quick wideout perfectly positioned in front of him, eager to block.

It’s two against one momentarily, but North Rowan cornerback Tsion Kelly, listed at 5-foot-9, 166 pounds, plays bigger than that. He is a tough, physical corner who can tackle. Kelly doesn’t push people out of bounds very often. Usually, he knocks them off their feet.

Kelly, No. 24 as a junior but wearing No. 11 as a senior, holds his ground, fights off the block, keeps the receiver bottled up.

Kelly disrupts the play long enough for help to arrive from a teammate, who crashes the party hard. The result is a tackle for loss. A sure plus has turned into a minus for the Bearcats.

Battles in space, quick athletes against quick athletes, were fought all night long in Wadesboro on Friday. North didn’t win all of them, but the Cavaliers won more than they lost and beat the Bearcats 38-28.

“I told our guys before the game that playing Anson was going to be a lot like playing ourselves,” North head coach Josh Sophia said. “That proved to be the case.”

One thing Anson didn’t have was an answer for Kelly.

Playing both ways like many of his teammates, Kelly pulled off a rare trifecta — an interception, a fumble recovery and a touchdown catch. He also tackled the punter for a loss.

“Tsion was all over the place, a lot more than you can see from looking at the stat sheet,”  Sophia said. “He did a really good job on both sides of the ball. He actually lost some of his better plays  — like a blocked extra point — to penalties.”

North had not played its best on the road the previous week at Forest Hills. North wasn’t supposed to win that game, but was supposed to be more competitive. The Cavaliers got down 27-0 at halftime and lost 41-13. But they learned from the disappointment, moved on and were ready for their next road trip.

“We had a good week of hard work in practice and we had our assignments down going into the Anson game,” Kelly said.

Sophia said the film showed that North’s defense played an exceptional first half, executing the game plan against a team that throws the ball pretty well and runs it extremely well.

Anson’s Jazear Griffin checks in at 6-foot-2, 220 pounds. North won’t face many backs with that kind of size the rest of the season.

“We knew they had a very tough downhill runner,” Kelly said. “We had to do a good job of tackling him and containing him.”

North limited Griffin to 80 hard-earned yards on 18 carries. The Cavaliers could live with that.

Kelly’s main role is defense, but North’s leading pass-catchers graduated last spring, including record-setting Amari McArthur.

So Kelly is also called on to boost the offense, and he gets some targets.

He caught a 23-yard TD pass from Jeremiah Alford to give North a 14-0 halftime lead. He made the catch near the 17-yard line and was able to take it the rest of the way.

North led 28-6 at one point in the second half before Anson came storming back.

North was able to answer. Amir Alexander, who had TD catches of 42 and 51 yards, had the big grab from Alford that turned a shaky 28-22 into a much more secure 35-22.

When it was 35-28 late, Daniel Montes Medrano kicked the 35-yard field goal that finally sealed victory. He already had kicked five PATs.

Anson piled up yardage in the second half and finished the game with 244 rushing yards and 144 passing yards, nearly 400 yards of offense.

That will win most games, but not this one. The Cavaliers held on. The long bus ride home was a pleasant one.

“We’ve got guys playing both ways, but I don’t think we slacked off in the second half,” Sophia said. “I think it was a case of Anson getting their stuff together. That’s a very talented team that we beat.  I’m really pleased with how we have improved since our first game.”